In the past two decades or so, the field of Chinese economic history has become bigger, more colourful, and more diversified than ever before. This article reviews the new development in scholarship in the filed of Chinese economic history. Apart from the lingering debate on China's performance in pre‐modern times (pre‐1750), China's growth and development in the 19th and 20th centuries has attracted more scholarly attention and thus has become increasingly more important in the understanding of China.