The significance of small things: Towards a history of dam building in the twentieth century

Speaker: Arunabh Ghosh (Harvard University) 

By the turn of the twenty-first century China was home to forty percent (one in three) of the world’s large dams. Striking as that infrastructural and environmental feat is, it tends to elide an equally remarkable investment in building small hydro power during the same period. By 1981, there were well over 80,000 small hydropower dams in the country. In this talk, I explore this latter history, situating it within the political economy and environmental history of the People’s Republic of China.

This talk is part of the History and Economics Seminar series.

Register here for Zoom link: https://histecon.fas.harvard.edu/seminars/ghosh.html.