Arunabh Ghosh

Bio

Arunabh Ghosh is a historian of modern China, with research and teaching interests in social and economic history, history of science and statecraft, transnational history, and China-India history.

Ghosh’s first book, Making it Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the early People’s Republic of China (Princeton University Press, 2020), investigates how the early PRC state built statistical capacity to know the nation through numbers. He has conducted research for the book in Beijing, Guangzhou, New Delhi, and Kolkata, and his work has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Andrew F. Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, and Columbia University. His work has appeared in the Journal of Asian Studies, Osiris, the International Journal of Asian Studies, BJHS Themes, EASTS, and the PRC History Review.

Other research projects include a history of dam and reservoir construction in twentieth century China and a history of China-Indian networks of Science, ca. 1920-1980.

Ghosh’s graduate offerings include seminars and pro-seminars on different aspects of twentieth century Chinese history and Asian environmental history. He also offers examination fields in Modern Chinese History. At the undergraduate level, he regularly offers a survey lecture on Modern China (1894-Present) and has conference courses on large-scale technological and social engineering projects in post-imperial China  and on the economic history of modern China.

Trained at Haverford College and at Tsinghua and Columbia universities, Ghosh joined the History Department in 2015 from the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, where he was an Academy Scholar for the 2014-15 AY. 

Research interests: social, economic, and intellectual histories of twentieth century China, transnational histories of science and statecraft, and Sino-Indian history.

Selected Publications

Books

• Ghosh, Arunabh. Making It Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the Early People’s Republic of China. Princeton University Press, 2020.

Recent Articles and Chapters

• Ghosh, Arunabh, Adhira Mangalagiri, and Tansen Sen. 2021. “China and India in the Age of Decolonization: An Introduction to the Nehru Papers Project, 1947–1964.” China and Asia 3 (2): 177-82. 
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2021. “Book review: Andrew B. Liu, Tea War: A History of Capitalism in China and India.” China Report 57 (3): 364-366.
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2021. “Trans-Himalayan science in mid-twentieth century China and India: Birbal Sahni, Hsü Jen, and a Pan-Asian paleobotany.” International Journal of Asian Studies, 1-23. 
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2020. “An Interview with Professor Arunabh Ghosh, author of Making it Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the Early People’s Republic of China”. 
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2020. Making It Count—Statistics and Statecraft in the Early People’s Republic of China. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2019. “Forecasting.” Critical Terms in Future Studies, edited by Heike Paul, 127-130. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2019. “Book Review: Environmental Sustainability From the Himalayas to the Oceans: Struggles and Innovations in China and India | Edited by Shikui Dong, Jayanta Bandyopadhyay, and Sanjay Chaturvedi.” Pacific Affairs 92 (3): 561-563. 
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2019. “Commentary: New Directions in the Study of PRC-Era Science.” East Asian Science, Technology and Society 13 (3): 443-448.
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2018. “Book Discussion: India, China, and the World: A Connected History by Tansen Sen (Delhi: OUP, 2018).” China Report 54 (3): 358-360.
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2018. “Lies, Damned Lies, and (Bourgeois) Statistics: Ascertaining Social Fact in Mid-century China and the Soviet Union.” 
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2018. ““What Does Longevity Mean for Leadership in China?”” The China Questions: Critical Insights into a Rising Power, edited by Michael Szonyi and Jennifer Rudolph, 51-57. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2018. “Book Discussion: India, China, and the World: A Connected History by Tansen Sen (Delhi: OUP, 2018).” China Report 54 (3): 358-360.
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2017. “Before 1962: The Case for 1950s China-India History.” The Journal of Asian Studies 76 (3): 697-727.
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2017. “1950s China-India Chronology.” A Resource for Research and Teaching.
• Ghosh, Arunabh, and Sören Urbansky, ed. 2017. “China from Without: Doing PRC History in Foreign Archives.” The PRC History Review, 2, 3, 26 pp.
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2017. “India and Science and Technology in the Early PRC.” The PRC History Review 2 (3): 7-9.
• Ghosh, Arunabh, and Sören Urbansky. 2017. “Editorial Introduction.” The PRC History Review 2 (3): 1-3.
• Ghosh, Arunabh. 2016. “Accepting difference, seeking common ground: Sino-Indian statistical exchanges 1951–1959.” BJHS Themes 1: 61-82.

Media

• China surpasses India in biogas plants, exposing hypocrisy of gau rakshaks, Economic Times, 2017
• Gobar gas and hot air: China far surpasses India in biogas plants, exposing hypocrisy of gau rakshaks, Times of India, 2017
• ‘China occupied special place in heart of Netaji Subhas Bose’, The Statesman, 2018
• Organisers Should Have Cancelled Conference After MEA Barred Pakistanis: Scholars, The Wire, 2018
• COVID-19: The Devil in the Data, The Wire, 2020
• ‘What Was Umar Khalid’s Crime?’: Over 200 Thinkers Across the World Extend Solidarity, The Wire, 2020
• How Amazon puts misinformation at the top of your reading list, The Guardian, 2020
• Know thy neighbour: The study of Chinese history in India is in crisis, Indian Express, 2021
• CCP at 100: Great success, big questions – China’s technocratic communists want world domination. But political, economic tensions abound, Times of India, 2021
• World Scholars on Ashoka Controversy: A Dangerous Attack on Academic Freedom, The Wire, 2021
• Freedom threat, The Times, 2021
• Amazon Prime Video India Plots 40-Strong TV And Film Originals Mega-Slate; Unveils TVoD Movie Rental Service, Deadline, 2022
• Podcast: Exploring the long history of India’s relationship with China, Scroll.In, 2022