Book talk by Yijun Wang.
Wednesday, November 18, 2026
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
Bunche Hall 10383
How did a mundane metal bind miners and officials to global capitalism and an emerging technocratic state? Tin was everywhere in early modern China—lining tea chests, shaping religious vessels, alloyed into coins. Yet beneath this ordinary metal lies a story of migration, technology, and governance. Join Yijun Wang as she discusses her new book,
The Tin Centuries, which uncovers how tin connected miners in Yunnan and Southeast Asia, entrepreneurs and traders across oceans, and Qing officials confronting unprecedented demands on natural resources.
By following tin’s movement from mountains and islands to imperial mintage and treasuries, Wang discusses how the “social technology” of mining enabled Chinese migrant miners to establish large-scale operations and dominate extraction in the mountains of Southwest China and on Bangka, an island off the coast of Sumatra. At the same time, she shows how Qing bureaucrats turned mining administration into a crucible for technocratic statecraft in which practical skill stood alongside Confucian learning. In doing so, her book reveals how a seemingly humble metal reflected the changing trajectory of Qing statecraft and foreshadowed China’s path toward modernity within an expanding global economy.
Yijun Wang is assistant professor of history at New York University. Her research interests include history of technology, material culture, and gender in early modern China. She is currently working on a new project on the
longue durée history of oranges centered on East Asia. Wang received her BA from Tsinghua University (2010) and her MA (2015) and PhD (2019) from Columbia University.
Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies