Gutenberg in Shanghai : Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876-1937 Hardback

by Christopher A. Reed

Part of the Contemporary Chinese Studies series

Hardback

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Description

In the mid-1910s, what historians call the "Golden Age ofChinese Capitalism" began, accompanied by a technologicaltransformation that included the drastic expansion of Chinaâ€™s"Gutenberg revolution." Gutenberg in Shanghaiexamines this process.

It finds the origins of that revolution in thecountryâ€™s printing industries of the late imperial period andanalyzes their subsequent development in the Republican era. This book, which relies on documents previously unavailable to bothWestern and Chinese researchers, demonstrates how Western technologyand evolving traditional values resulted in the birth of a unique formof print capitalism whose influence on Chinese culture was far-reachingand irreversible.

Its conclusion contests scholarly arguments that viewChinaâ€™s technological development as slowed by culture, or thatinterpret Chinese modernity as mere cultural continuity. A vital reevaluation of Chinese modernity, Gutenberg inShanghai will be enthusiastically received by scholars of Chinesehistory and by specialists in cultural studies, political science,sociology, the history of the book, and the anthropology of science andtechnology.