Prof. Dr. Hans Ulrich Vogel 傅漢思

Professor of Chinese History and Society, Department of Chinese Studies, University of Tübingen

Academic Career

• Since 1994 Professor of Chinese History and Society, Department of Chinese Studies, University of Tübingen
• 1989 Habilitation, Sinology, Faculty of East Asian Studies, University of Bochum
• 1987-1994 Lecturer, Institute of Chinese Studies, University of Heidelberg
• 1983 PhD Sinology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zürich

Research Focus
Prof. Vogel specializes in social and economic history as well as the history of technology and science in traditional China. He has written extensively on the local administration and land policy of the Taiping rebellion (1850-1864), the history of salt production, mining, money and metrology as well as the history of kickball in pre-modern China. More recent interests include Marco Polo research and the role of China in the early history of globalization. He is currently directing the research project "Translating Western Science, Technology and Medicine to Late Ming China: Convergences and Divergences in the Light of the «Kunyu gezhi» 坤輿格致 (Investigations of the Earth’s Interior, 1640) and «Taixi shuifa» 泰西水法 (Hydromethods of the Great West, 1612)," which is supported from 2018 to 2023 by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Construction and repair of brine pipes in the western saline of Furong 富榮 (today's city of Zigong 自贡市) in the province of Sichuan. Photography of Sun Mingjing 孫明經, 1938, Archive of the City of Zigong (Zigongshi dang’an 自贡市档案).

Major Publications
Vogel (with Günter Dux) is editor of Concepts of Nature: A Chinese-European Cross-Cultural Perspective (Leiden: Brill, 2010). In 2013, he published Marco Polo Was in China: New Evidence from Currencies, Salts and Revenues (Leiden: Brill) which in 2015 received an ICAS Accolade for the best specialist book publication in social sciences for 2013 and 2014. With Cao Jin and Sabine Kink, he has authored a textbook titled Die Falschmünzerbande vom Alten Rabenhorst im Distrikt Tongzi, Guizhou (1794); Band 1: Die chinesische Dokumentensprache der Qing-Zeit (1644-1911) in Forschung und Lehre; Band 2: Chinesische Dokumente [The Counterfeiter Gang of the Old Crow’s Nest in Tongzi District, Guizhou (1794); Volume 1: Documentary Language of the Qing Period (1644-1911) in Research and Teaching; Volume 2: Chinese Documents], which will be published by Tübingen University Press in 2023. Near completion are his history of the production technology of the salt, natural gas and petroleum in traditional China and a book manuscript (with Peter Golas † et al.) on “China's Georgius Agricola”: Wu Qijun (1789-1847) and his “Illustrated Account of the Mines and Smelters of Yunnan”, which is a history of the mining and smelting industries in Yunnan during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Other Activities
From 1999 to 2016 Prof. Vogel was editor-in-chief of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, and from 2005 to 2012 director of the DFG Research Group "Monies, Markets and Finance in China and East Asia, 1600-1900: Local, Regional, National and International Dimensions". He is editor-in-chief of the Brill monograph series Monies, Markets and Finance in East Asia, 1600-1900.

Imperial edict of Qianlong 59/8/dingchou丁丑 (16.09.1794) to Fukang’an 福康安 et al. concerning the counterfeiter case of the Old Crow's Nest, district ofTongzi 桐梓縣, province of Guizhou. See «Da Qing Gaozong Chun (Qianlong) huangdi shilu» 大清高宗純(乾隆)皇帝實錄 (Veritable records of Gaozong Emperor Chun (Qianlong) of the Great Qing), compiled by Qinggui 慶桂 et al., Edition Taibei: Hualian chubanshe, 1964, ch. 1459, fol. 34a-34b.