Mingran Cao
PhD Candidate/ Self funded
- Name
- Mr. M. Cao MPhil
- Telephone
- 071 5272727
- m.cao@hum.leidenuniv.nl
- ORCID iD
- null
Mingran Cao is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Area Studies.
More information about Mingran Cao
Research Interests
- 19-20th Century China
- Social and Economic History
- Business-State Relations
- History of Global Capitalism
- Environmental History
PhD Project
“An Experiment in Self-Governance: Cotton Plantations in Coastal Jiangsu, 1895-1950”
His PhD project studies cotton plantations in coastal Jiangsu from 1890s to 1950s. It examines how the land reclamation companies, which founded and managed the cotton plantations, negotiated with state, society, and environment, and how they mobilized global currents of knowledge and technology. The project delves into the rise and fall of cotton plantations in coastal Jiangsu, an economic nationalist project to enhance domestic supply of raw cotton, in order to understand capitalism in early-twentieth-century China with a global perspective.
Biography
Prior to his study at Leiden, he completed his BA in International Affairs and Political Science at George Washington University and the London School of Economics, and obtained his MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History at Cambridge. Alongside his academic experiences, he had previously worked in think tanks and non-governmental organizations in China and the US.
Publication
Cao, Mingran. Review of The Master in Bondage: Factory Workers in China, 1949–2019, by Huaiyin Li, European Journal of East Asian Studies 23, 1 (2024): 109-111, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/15700615-02301002
PhD Candidate/ Self funded
- Faculty of Humanities
- Leiden Institute for Area Studies
- SAS China
Contact
- Cao M. (2025), Review of: Baker M. (2024), Pivot of China: spatial politics and inequality in modern Zhengzhou. Cambridge: Havard University Asia Center. The Chinese Historical Review 32(1): 77-79.
- Cao M. (2025), Spatial transformation and water infrastructure in coastal Jiangsu: the role of land reclamation companies during the early twentieth century, Planning Perspectives 40(5): 1387-1400.
- Cao M. (2024), Review of: Huaiyin L. (2023), The master in bondage: factory workers in China, 1949–2019. Stanford: Stanford University Press. European Journal of East Asian Studies 23(1): 109-111.