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A history of how Chinese officials used statistics to define a new society in the early years of the People's Republic of China In 1949, at the end of a long period of wars, one of the biggest challenges facing leaders of the new People's Republic of China was how much they did not know. The government of one of the world's largest nations was committed to fundamentally reengineering its society and economy via socialist planning while having almost no reliable statistical data about their own country. Making It Count is the history of efforts to resolve this "crisis in counting." Drawing on a wealth of sources culled from China, India, and the United States, Arunabh Ghosh explores the choices made by political leaders, statisticians, academics, statistical workers, and even literary figures in attempts to know the nation through numbers.Ghosh shows that early reliance on Soviet-inspired methods of exhaustive enumeration became increasingly untenable in China by the mid-1950s. Unprecedented and unexpected exchanges with Indian statisticians followed, as the Chinese sought to learn about the then-exciting new technology of random sampling. These developments were overtaken by the tumult of the Great Leap Forward (1958-61), when probabilistic and exhaustive methods were rejected and statistics was refashioned into an ethnographic enterprise. By acknowledging Soviet and Indian influences, Ghosh not only revises existing models of Cold War science but also globalizes wider developments in the history of statistics and data.Anchored in debates about statistics and its relationship to state building, Making It Count offers fresh perspectives on China's transition to socialism.

Statistics --- Statistical services. --- Data collection services --- Information services --- Statistical analysis --- Statistical data --- Statistical methods --- Statistical science --- Mathematics --- Econometrics --- Political aspects --- History --- China --- Statistical services --- A Passion for Facts: Social Surveys and the Construction of the Chinese Nation-State. --- Anti-Rightist Campaign. --- Austin Jersild. --- Chinese population management. --- Chinese statistical reports. --- Chinese statistics. --- Choh-ming Li. --- Curating Revolution: Politics on Display in Mao’s China. --- Denise Ho. --- Famine Politics in Maoist China and the Soviet Union. --- Felix Wemheuer. --- Great Leap Forward. --- How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind. --- Jennifer Altehenger. --- Jeremy Friedman. --- Legal Lessons: Popularizing Laws in the People’s Republic of China. --- Lorenz Lüthi. --- Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China. --- Shadow Cold War. --- Sigrid Schmalzer. --- Sino-Indian, PRC studies. --- Ted Porter. --- The Rise of Statistical Thinking. --- The Sino-Soviet Alliance. --- The Sino-Soviet Split. --- The Statistical System of Communist China. --- Tong Lam. --- Trust in Numbers. --- comparative statecraft. --- economic governance. --- economic policymaking. --- ethnographic, exhaustive, stochastic approaches. --- government statisticians. --- historians of modern China. --- modern Chinese history. --- national statistical systems. --- quantitative positivism. --- quantitative techniques. --- science and technology. --- socialist statistics. --- standardized statistical work. --- statistical approaches. --- statistical science. --- statistical significance and random sampling. --- tongji. --- Cina --- Kinë --- Cathay --- Chinese National Government --- Chung-kuo kuo min cheng fu --- Republic of China (1912-1949) --- Kuo min cheng fu (China : 1912-1949) --- Chung-hua min kuo (1912-1949) --- Kina (China) --- National Government (1912-1949) --- China (Republic : 1912-1949) --- People's Republic of China --- Chinese People's Republic --- Chung-hua jen min kung ho kuo --- Central People's Government of Communist China --- Chung yang jen min cheng fu --- Chung-hua chung yang jen min kung ho kuo --- Central Government of the People's Republic of China --- Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo --- Zhong hua ren min gong he guo --- Kitaĭskai︠a︡ Narodnai︠a︡ Respublika --- Činská lidová republika --- RRT --- Republik Rakjat Tiongkok --- KNR --- Kytaĭsʹka Narodna Respublika --- Jumhūriyat al-Ṣīn al-Shaʻbīyah --- RRC --- Kitaĭ --- Kínai Népköztársaság --- Chūka Jinmin Kyōwakoku --- Erets Sin --- Sin --- Sāthāranarat Prachāchon Čhīn --- P.R. China --- PR China --- PRC --- P.R.C. --- Chung-kuo --- Zhongguo --- Zhonghuaminguo (1912-1949) --- Zhong guo --- Chine --- République Populaire de Chine --- República Popular China --- Catay --- VR China --- VRChina --- 中國 --- 中国 --- 中华人民共和国 --- Jhongguó --- Bu̇gu̇de Nayiramdaxu Dundadu Arad Ulus --- Bu̇gu̇de Nayiramdaqu Dumdadu Arad Ulus --- Bu̇gd Naĭramdakh Dundad Ard Uls --- BNKhAU --- БНХАУ --- Khi︠a︡tad --- Kitad --- Dumdadu Ulus --- Dumdad Uls --- Думдад Улс --- Kitajska --- China (Republic : 1949- )