Research on Gold and Silver in the Tang and Song Dynasties - Focusing on the Monetary Function of Gold and Silver

Author: Kazutaka Shigeru
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-12-01
Features: Kazutaka Shigeru (1880-1946) graduated from the Department of Chinese History at the Faculty of Letters, Tokyo Imperial University in 1906 and obtained a doctorate in literature. He was a professor at the Faculty of Letters, Tokyo University. He was a pioneer in the study of Chinese economic history in Japan, with major works including Studies on the Economic History of China, An Outline of the Social and Economic History of China, and Research on Gold and Silver in the Tang and Song Dynasties. In 1927, Research on Gold and Silver in the Tang and Song Dynasties won the Imperial Academy Prize of Japan, and in 1944, the China Joint Reserve Bank organized the translation and publication of the Chinese edition. Given the continued importance of this book for the study of Chinese currency, especially the history of gold and silver currency, Zhonghua Book Company is now re-publishing it based on the 1944 translation. The original translation was in traditional vertical characters, but this re-publication has been converted to simplified horizontal characters and some obvious errors have been corrected. The original translation often used fragmented sentences for quotations, differing from today's standard punctuation norms, and the quoted classical texts also differ from today's standardized annotated editions.