Yixin Chen, Associate Professor
Degrees
- Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis
- M.A., Nanjing University
- B.A., Anhui Normal University
Academic Interests
Yixin Chen's specialty is twentieth-century Chinese socioeconomic history. He has done research on comparative modernization, on the rural economic history of Republican China, on the Great Leap Forward of Maoist era, and on China's Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976. He is currently working on a book-length manuscript on China's Great Leap famine of 1958-61, which, based primarily on his interviews with the Chinese peasants, examines the famine at villages.
Courses Taught
- HST 104: Intro to Global History since 1848
- HST 360: History of Modern China
- HST 361: History of Modern Japan
- HST 363: History of Premodern East Asia
- HST 377: World War II (team teaching)
- HST 377: Global History since 1945 (team teaching)
- HST 497/597: History of Twentieth-century China; US and China 1840-2000; Modern East Asia; East Asia since 1945
Significant Publications
Paths to Modern Nations: Political Modernization from a Comparative Perspective (Zouxiang xiandai guojia zhi lu: bijiao zhengzhi xiandaihua yanjiu, coauthored with Qian Chengdan:), Sichuan People's Press, Chengdu, 1987, 344 p.
"Under the same Maoist sky: the disparity in death rates between Anhui and Jiangxi during the Great Leap Forward Famine," in Kimberly Manning and Felix Wemheuer, eds., Eating Bitterness: New Perspectives on China's Great Leap Forward and Famine, Vancouver: University of British Colombia University Press, 2011:197-225.
"When food became scarce: life and death in Chinese villages during the Great Leap Forward Famine," The Journal of the Historical Society, 2010, X(2):117-165.
"Cold War competition and food production in China, 1957-1962," Agricultural History, 2009, (83)1: 51-78. The 2009 winner of the Vernon Carstensen Memorial Award for Best Article, Agricultural History.
