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Ulrich Theobald

Portrait of Ulrich   Theobald

Ulrich Theobald is a German researcher on Chinese history specializing in the economic, military, and administrative history of late imperial China, a Senior Lecturer, Department of Chinese Studies, University of Tübingen, Germany since 2016.

One of his current projects investigates the impact of the sale of offices during the 18th/​19th centuries on the employment structure of state examination graduates, with a shift to life-long modes of ​“on-the-job training”. The project ​“Administrative Military Law in Late Imperial China: Accounting (Junxu zeli 軍需則例) and Production of Weapons and the Managing of Arsenals (Junqi zeli 軍器則例)” is one of just a few studies of zeli regulations for administrative purposes. An analysis and translation of Zheng Qiao’s 鄭樵 Tongzhi jiaochou lüe 通志校讐略 (1161) and Zhang Xuecheng’s 章學誠 Jiaochou tongyi 校讐通義 (1779) offers a contribution to theoretical approaches in historical Chinese bibliography. At present a project on Jiang Fangzhen’s 蔣方震 (Jiang Baili 蔣百里, 1882 – 1938) book Caibing jihua shu 裁兵計畫書 (1923) is conducted.

Dr. Theobald had published articles and books on monetary history, employment of civilians in the military, military pay and corruption, weights and measures, as well as on Chinese empresses, musical theory and the history of energy in traditional China, and currently works on a research about bibliography in China. He is the editor of the website ChinaKnowledge, with more than 3,000 articles published so far. 

Publications

  1. “Das Bild der Kaiserin Lü (r. 187 – 180 v. Chr.)” in Geschichtsschreibung und Literatur, Tübingen, unveröffentlichte Magisterarbeit, 1999.
  2. [with Hans Ulrich Vogel] Chinese, Japanese and Western Research in Chinese Historical Metrology: A Classified Bibliography (1925−2002), 2002 [enlarged edition 2012, revised by Cao Jin]
  3. Review of ​“Zhang Junhua and Martin Woesler, China’s Digital Dream: the Impact of the Internet on Chinese Society”, East Asian Science Technology and Medicine, , 2003, 21: 162 – 166.
  4. “Lamaismus”, ​“Mandschu”, ​“Mongolen”, in Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit vol. 7 and 8, Friedrich Jaeger und Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen, Metzler, Stuttgart, 2008.
  5. “Selbstinszenierung im Kleinen: In Lack geschnitzter Lobpreis an Ruhm und Größe der Qing-Dynastie”, Tribus, 2009, 58: 117 – 124.
  6. Review of ​“CAO Cong: China’s Scientific Elite”, in East Asian Science Technology and Medicine, 31: 109 – 115, 2010.
  7. The Second Jinchuan Campaign (1771−1776): Economic, Social and Political Aspects of an Important Qing Period Border War, PhD Diss., Tübingen, 2011.
  8. Review of ​“R. Kent Guy, Qing Governors and their Provinces: The Evolution of Territorial Administration in China, 1644 – 1796”, in International Journal of Asian Studies, 9⁄1: 141 – 143, 2012.
  9. War Finance and Logistics in Late Imperial China: A Study of the Second Jinchuan Campaign (1771−1776), Brill: Leiden, 2013 (Series Monies, Markets and Finance in East Asia, 5).
  10. [with Christine Moll-Murata) ​“Military Employment in Qing Dynasty China”, in Erik-Jan Zürcher (ed.), Fighting for a Living: Origins, Practices and Consequences of Different Forms of Military Employment in Europe, the Middle East and Asia (1500−2000), Amsterdam University Press, 2013, p 353 – 392.
  11. “Kaiserinmutter — Mutter Kaiserin: Die schwierige Erfüllung einer politisch-privaten Rolle”, in Heike Moser und Stephan Köhne (eds.), Frauenbilder/​Frauenkörper: Inszenierungen des Weiblichen in den Gesellschaften Süd- und Ostasiens, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 2013, p333-350.
  12. “Craftsmen and Specialist Troops in Early Modern Chinese Armies”, in Kai Filipiak (ed.), Civil-Military Relations in Chinese History: From Ancient China to the Communist Takeover, Routledge, New York, 2014, p 191 – 209.
  13. “Disorder in the General Staff: A Corruption Case during the First Jinchuan War (1747 – 1749)”, in Kaushik Roy and Peter Lorge (eds.), Chinese and Indian Warfare – From the Classical Age to 1870, Routledge, New York, 2014, p 234 – 245.
  14. Review of ​“Stephen Skinner, Guide to the Feng Shui Compass: A Compendium of Classical Feng Shui”, in East Asian Science Technology and Medicine, 37: 111 – 114, 2014.
  15. [ed. with Jane K. Leonard] Money in Asia (1200 ‑1900): Small Currencies in Social and Political Contexts, Brill, Leiden, 2015 (Series Monies, Markets and Finance in East Asia. 6).
  16. “Beamtenernennung, Anwartschaft auf ein Amt und Beamte auf Probe im späten Kaiserreich”, in Jonas Polfuß und Kerstin Sturm (eds.), Recht und Gerechtigkeit in China: Jahrbuch der Deutschen Vereinigung für Chinastudien 11, Harrassowith, Wiesbaden, 2015, pp. 271 – 292.
  17. [with Clifford Ando] ​“Forests”, in Mischa Meier (ed.) A Cultural History of the Environment, Vol. 1, The Classical Age, 3500 BCE – 400 CE, Bloomsbury, London, 2016.
  18. [with Winfried Schmitz] ​“Work, Energy, and Power”, in Mischa Meier (ed.), op.cit. 
  19. “Space and Place in Administrative Military Regulations of Qing China: An Evaluation of the Legal Type of zeli”, in Jérôme Bourgon (ed.), Les lieux de la loi en Chine impériale / Legalizing Space in Imperial China, Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident, 40, 2016, p:183 – 206.
  20. “Beamtenernennung, Anwartschaft auf ein Amt und Beamte auf Probe im späten Kaiserreich”, in Jonas Polfuß und Kerstin Sturm (eds.), Recht und Gerechtigkeit in China: Jahrbuch der Deutschen Vereinigung für Chinastudien, 11, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 2017, pp. 271 – 292.
  21. “Monetary History of East Asia”, in David Ludden (ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, Oxford University Press, New York, 2017.
  22. Review of ​“Wing-kin PUK, The Rise and Fall of a Public Debt Market in 16th-Century China: The Story of the Ming Salt Certificate”, in Journal of Chinese Studies, 64: 309 – 315, 2017.
  23. [ed. with Cao Jin] Southwest China in Regional and Global Perspectives (c. 1600 — 1911): Metals, Transport, Trade and Society, Brill, Leiden, 2018.
  24. Review of ​“Leland Ness, with Bin Shih, Kangzhan: Guide to Chinese Ground Forces 1937 – 1945”, in Journal of Asian History, 52: 176 – 178, 2018.
  25. Review of ​“Joseph W. Esherick and Matthew T. Combs, eds., 1943: China at the Crossroads”, in: Journal of Asian History, 52: 172 – 175, 2018.
  26. Review of ​“Zhihong SHI, Central Government Silver Treasury: Revenue, Expenditure and Inventory Statistics, ca. 1667 – 1899”, in Economic History Review, 1007 – 1008, 2018.
  27. “Xunzi: An Early Confucian Master on the Nature of Man”, in Nuño Alberto Valenzuela Alonso, transl. La naturaleza del hombre es malvada: Por el maestro Xun Kuang, con la traducción del capítulo 23 del Xun Zi, y notas exegéticas, 2018.
  28. “Southwest China: Local Conditions and Economic Trajectories”, in Ulrich Theobald und Cao Jin (eds.), Southwest China in Regional and Global Perspectives (c. 1600 – 1911): Metals, Transport, Trade and Society (Leiden: Brill), 2018, pp. 3 – 41.
  29. [transl.] ​“Yang Yuda, The Copper Market of Hankou and the Illegal Trade of Yunnan Copper in the Mid-Qing Period”, ibid, 2018, pp. 145 – 183.
  30. “Culture of War — High and Popular”, in Sascha Möbius, ed. A Cultural History of War — The Age of Enlightenment, Bloomsbury, London, 2019.
  31. “Liji – Yueji”, in Hartmut Grimm anf Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann (eds.), Lexikon zum musiktheoretischen und musikästhetischen Schrifttum, Bärenreiter and Metzler, Stuttgart, 2019.
  32. “Tibetan and Qing Troops in the Gorkha Wars (1788 – 1792) as Presented in Chinese Sources: A Paradigm Shift in Military Culture”, Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, 2020, 53: 114 – 146.