Shandong Area's Famine And Population Vicissitudes In The Qing Dynasty

Famine and population vicissitudes are the key factors that affect the development progress of society. The problem of famine and population was extremely serious in the Qing dynasty. In this thesis, I chose Shandong area of the Qing dynasty as a object of study, utilizing a lot of historical documents, such as faithful records, local records, files, and so on. I have studied the relationship between famine and population vicissitudes from famine and population's reciprocal effect. During the progress of study, I have used the experience of our predecessor and theories and methods in history, economy, sociology, and so on.This thesis can be divided into five parts as follows:I .Introduction.In this part, beginning with the narration of Malthusian theory of population, I have reviewed and given a brief account of the survey about the study of famine and population in recent years. Moreover, defined and discriminated the concepts and the theories which are mutually related with famine and population.II. Shandong areas famine in the Qing dynasty.In this part, I have found that climate changes had an severe effect on flood, drought, locust pest, etc. In addition, I gave a brief account of the damage caused by natural disaster, and analyzed the vicissitudes about national ability of disaster relief from various angles: disaster prevention, water conservancy project, disaster relief, and so on.III. The influnce of population growth on social economy and famine vicissitudes. In this part, I introduced the situation of population growth in Shandong area inQing dynasty, and then discussed its negative effects on social economy, which caused by population overgrowth and the decline of supporting ability of social economy system on disaster.IV. The effect of famine on social economy and population vicissitudes.The effect of disaster on population changes starts with the destroying social economy system. In the fourth part, I explored the concrete manifestation: the miserable life of small farmers and social unrest. After that, I analyzed the effect about the collapse of social economy system on the changes of population migration and the sexconstruction of population profession.V. ConclusionThrough studying the relation between famine and population vicissitudes in Shandong area in Qing dynasty, I have drawn a conclusion: athough social economy vicissitudes are the result of many factors population is the main factor. The influnce from it is more remarkable in the traditional agricultural society. Therefore, we should maintain the appropriate population in order to keep the development of social economy in concert and harmony.