1.2: Big Data and the Scholarship of Discovery

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Welcome, to understanding China, 1700s-2000, a data analytic

approach part two, section two, big data, and the scholarship of discovery.

The beginning of the 16th century

with the Scientific Revolution marked the gradual divergence of natural and

what became social sciences, each with a distinct scholarly orientation.

The natural sciences, on the hand,

increasingly emphasized the scholarship of discovery of the natural world.

The social sciences, on the other hand,

focused on the scholarship of interpretation of the largely human world.

Thomas Robert Malthus' An Essay on the Principle of Population

exemplifies this second kind of scholarship.

And part two of A New History for a New China largely discusses how

new facts from big historical social science data are causing us to rethink

the Malthusian framework of who we are.

Part two for A History of a New China,

like part one, offers alternative perspectives derived from the creation and

analysis of big social science data from historical and contemporary China.

And from such studies, we identify new objective,

salient Facts to construct a new sort of History from Below that

contributes to a more global understanding of human history and human behavior.

By doing so, our course demonstrates how a new scholarship of discovery is redefining

not just what is singular about modern China and modern Chinese history, but

also world history and social theory.

Now unlike traditional history, which focuses largely on the biographies and

actions of specific historical figures.

A New History for A New China seeks to write a history based on the experiences

of all peoples, elites and non-elites.

This alternative History from Below,

not to be confused with the history of ordinary people, is already commonplace in

Western history, powered by the construction of Big Historical Data.

Indeed, an irony of professional history

is how in spite of the worldwide decline of professional historians,

big historical data is already having a big impact on the global academe.

In this chart, you can see the decline

of professional historians, the production of professional historians.

You find where the number of Masters and PhD degrees in history given in

the United States, the blue line, and in China, the red line.

Contrasted with the number of scholarly articles published every five

years citing major big historical data sets.

As you can see, the United States of the production of professional historians has

declined one third, from 1.5% to

0.5% of all Masters and PhD students.

And in China, the decline is similar from almost 2.5%

to less than 1.5% of all professional degrees given that year.

By contrast, the number of scholarly articles published every five years

citing big historical data has increased from 70 some

in 1991 to 1995,

to 300 some in 1996 to the year 2000,

to 1,000 some in the year

2001 to 2005 to 2300 some articles in the period 2006 to 2010,

so a growth from 79 to 2300

over the space of 20 years.

While there is a simultaneous decline,

slightly earlier, In the number of professional historians.

So, more interested in use of professional historical data,

less interest in being a professional historian.

Now, these big historical data come largely from population of sources.

And what you have here are the five

most popular data sets which were used to construct the previous chart.

And they are the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series

based on the US Census collected at the University of Minnesota.

With NIH funding, using the US Census and

other national census data, the Utah population database,

which melds the genealogies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,

with the census and other materials from the state of Utah.

The BALSAC Population Database, which is based on vital registration for

the province of Quebec.

The Scanian Economic Demographic Database, which is based on

church records from Southern Sweden from a variety of parishes.

And the Historical Sample of the Netherlands,

which is based largely on again national registration data.

Now Big Historical Data also exists for China and

are also beginning to produce a new scholarship of discovery that is similarly

beginning to rewrite our understanding of Chinese history.

Over the last three decades, the Lee-Campbell Research Group has created

largely from Chinese historical archives, several Big Historical Datasets that

summarize the life experiences or life events of over 1 million Chinese men and

women in the Qing Dynasty and the Republican period.

That is roughly from the 18th through the mid 20th century.

While these data somewhere is the history of specific populations and

the events during the last 300 years.

The patterns they identify shed new light on our understanding of China as a whole,

and more importantly on our understanding of comparative human behavior as a whole.

Now these projects, these data, and

the analysis of these data were accomplished by researchers and

students from the Lee Campbell Research Group over the last 30 years.

What you have here, is a photograph of the research group in 2012.

They include four of our important researchers.

Notably Gao Jing who used to be the head of

the local history office of the Elnine province.

Sun Hui Cheng, Xiao Xing, and Xu Dan, and

they include three different generations of students,

postdocs, later on professors, at the Lee Campbell research group.

Beginning of course with the most senior.

Five professors including myself.

Cameron Campbell, a full Professor of Sociology at UCLA.

Liang Chen, an Associate Professor of History at Nanjing University.

Yuxue Ren,

an associate professor of history at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

And Shuang Chen who, like Cameron, began as a student working with me and

is now an assistant professor of history at the University of Iowa.

More junior to them, more recent than graduates, are three postdoctoral fellows

including Byung-Ho Lee, who has a PhD for the University of Michigan.

Li Ji who has a PhD in history for the University of Michigan and

is now teaching at Hong Kong University.and Hongbo Wang who

has a PhD in sociology, from UCLA,

working with Cameron, and is now also teaching and doing research at HKUST.

And finally our youngest cohort,

three current graduate students at HKUST, Zang Xiaolu, who is an MPhil student.

Notably, of course, my co-teacher Dong Hao and Matthew Noellert,

who are PhD students.

One in social science, the other in humanities.

Now, part one of A New History for

a New China was based on half of these demographic records,

largely in Chinese education, examination, and event archives.

Part two of this class is based on the other half.

3 million linked household and population records that document the histories

of over 600,000 unique individuals and their families and communities.

Much of this data is already publicly available and

can be downloaded from the following URL from the Inter-University Consortium

in Political and Social research.

Housed at the University of Michigan in the China Multi-Generational Panel Data

from Liaoning,

the China Multi-Generational Panel Data from Shuangcheng, and hopefully later,

the China Multi-Generational Data from the Imperial Lineage.

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Understanding China, 1700-2000: A Data Analytic Approach, Part 2

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