Age of Exploration : How Chinese Scientists and Administrators Discovered China

Elisabeth Kaske

ISBN 10: 3111245179 / ISBN 13: 9783111245171

Editore: De Gruyter, 2024

Riguardo questo articolo

Neuware - In the early twentieth century, Chinese intellectuals came to realize that Westerners surpassed them not only in knowledge of the world, but also in knowledge of China itself. A rising generation of Chinese scientists, engineers, and administrators was eager to address this state of affairs and began to retrace the footsteps of Western explorers who had crisscrossed China during the preceding century. The nine case studies assembled in this book show how a new cohort of professional Chinese explorers traveled, studied, appropriated, and reshaped national space from the 1920s to the 1950s. In some instances, the explorers drew directly from the fieldwork practices of their Western predecessors. In others, they trained compilers to collect and systematize local knowledge that could be passed up the administrative hierarchy to government and national institutions. Their projects helped to claim natural resources, prepare for infrastructural development, and create new institutionalized knowledge and public engagement with textual representations of China's geobody. This book elucidates the ways in which knowledge production in early twentieth-century China centered on space and contributed to China's transformation into a modern nation-state.

Codice articolo 9783111245171

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Age of Exploration : How Chinese Scientists and Administrators Discovered China
• Editore: De Gruyter
• Data di pubblicazione: 2024
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 3111245179
• ISBN 13: 9783111245171
• Rilegatura: Buch
• Condizione: Neu
• Dimensioni: 234 L x 161 A x 20 P (millimetri) 234 millimetri di larghezza per 161 millimetri di altezza per 20 millimetri di profondità
• Peso: 544 grammi

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

In the early twentieth century, Chinese intellectuals came to realize that Westerners surpassed them not only in knowledge of the world, but also in knowledge of China itself. A rising generation of Chinese scientists, engineers, and administrators was eager to address this state of affairs and began to retrace the footsteps of Western explorers who had crisscrossed China during the preceding century. The nine case studies assembled in this book show how a new cohort of professional Chinese explorers traveled, studied, appropriated, and reshaped national space from the 1920s to the 1950s. In some instances, the explorers drew directly from the fieldwork practices of their Western predecessors. In others, they trained compilers to collect and systematize local knowledge that could be passed up the administrative hierarchy to government and national institutions.

Their projects helped to claim natural resources, prepare for infrastructural development, and create new institutionalized knowledge and public engagement with textual representations of China’s geobody. This book elucidates the ways in which knowledge production in early twentieth-century China centered on space and contributed to China’s transformation into a modern nation-state.

Informazioni sull?autore

Elisabeth Kaske, Leipzig University, Germany; Elisabeth Köll, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, United States of America.

Elisabeth Kaske, Universität Leipzig, Deutschland; Elisabeth Köll, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, United States of America.