Boyao Zhang

This project is a social and economic history of accounting in the twentieth century China. It examines how the struggles over the fate of Chinese socialism unfolded in the account books of the Communist state. Through an analysis of the routine aspects of accounting, this research explores how the everyday clerical work of bookkeeping calculations shaped political and economic life under Maoist socialism. In placing the instruments of calculation and paperwork protocols of their profession at the service of Chinese state socialism, accountants witnessed first-hand the possibilities and contradictions of the revolutionary aspirations of Maoism.