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Podcast: Middle East Dossier
Episode: [Book Talk] Making It Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the Early Peopleās Republic of China
Description: In 1949, at the end of Ā long periods of wars, one of the biggest challenges facing leaders of the new Peopleās Republic of China was how much they did not know. The government of one of the worldās largest nations was committed to fundamentally re-engineering its society and economy via socialist planning while having almost no reliable statistical data of the country.Ā Making It CountĀ is the history of efforts to resolve this ācrisis in countingā. Drawing on a wealth of sources culled from China, India and the US, Arunabh Ghosh explores the choices made by political leaders, statisticia...