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Western Technology and China’s Industrial Development
This book explores how steam engine technology was transferred into nineteenth-century China in the second half of the nineteenth century by focusing on the transmission of knowledge and skills. It takes on the long-term problem in historiography that puts too much emphasis on politics but ignores the techno-scientific and institutional requirements for launching such an endeavor. It examines how translations broke linguistic and conceptual barriers and brought new a understanding of heat to the Chinese readership. It also explores how the Fuzhou Navy Yard’s shipbuilding and training program trained China’s first generation of shipbuilding workers and engineers. It argues that conservatism against technology was not to blame for China’s slow development in steamship building. Rather, it was government officials’ failure to realize the scale of institutional and techno-scientific changes required in importing and disperse new knowledge and skills.
Tienkuo the Heavenly Kingdom
It was the year 1858 and three young “run-aways” Jason Brandt, son of a Hong Kong missionary, his friend Wu Sek-chong and the beautiful and defiant Black Jade set off to find the capital of the rebel Taiping Tienkuo, The Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace. Established in 1851 by a failed civil service candidate who claimed to be the little brother of Christ, the semi-Christian Taiping Kingdom, had made a dramatic and bloody bid to overthrow the Confucian rule of the Ch’ing Dynasty. The three young people’s search for the Heavenly Kingdom and what they eventually found among the Taipings is the central plot of this historical novel of journey and self-discovery in 19th century China.
Robert Hart and China’s Early Modernization
"As the Ch’ing government’s Inspector General of the Maritime Customs Service, Robert Hart was the most influential Westerner in China for half a century. These journal entries continue the sequence begun in Entering China’s Service and cover the years when Hart was setting up Customs procedures, establishing a modus operandi with the Ch’ing bureaucracy, and inspecting the treaty ports. They culminate in Hart’s return visit to Europe with the Pin-ch’un Mission and his marriage in Northern Ireland. Smith, Fairbank, and Bruner interleave the segments of Hart’s journals with lively narratives describing the contemporary Chinese scene and recounting Hart’s responses to the many challenges of establishing a Western-style organization within a Chinese milieu."
Public Success, Private Sorrow
The story of an Englishman who lived through the last years of the Qing dynasty, was trapped in the British Legation during the Boxer uprising and went on to occupy a number of senior positions in the Imperial Customs as Commissioner of Customs in various ports, Shanghai Postmaster and first Director of the important Customs College.
李鴻章
Li Hung-chang (1823-1901) was a Chinese statesman particularly notable for his promotion of industrialization and advocacy of bureaucratic reform. Most of the papers in this volume were first presented in two panels devoted to Li at the 1987 annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association. The volume is divided into six parts: introduction ("The Beginnings of China's Modernization"), the rise of Li Hung-chang, Li in the role of a national official, Li as diplomat, Li as modernizer, and conclusion (including a bibliographical essay). Paper edition (unseen), $22.50. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
War in the Modern World since 1815
Conflict is central to human history. It is often the cause, course and consequence of social, cultural and political change. Military history therefore has to be more than a technical analysis of armed conflict. War in the Modern World since 1815 addresses war as a cultural phenomenon, discusses its meaning in different socities and explores the various contexts of military action.
The Meaning of Freedom
This book is about how one of the leading intellectual architects of Chinese modernization, Yan Fu (1854 - 1921), introduced the Chinese intellectual world to the liberalism of John Stuart Mill partly by grasping Mill's ideas, but also by misunderstanding and projecting them onto indigenous Chinese values, which in turn led to criticism and resistance. Rather than bending Western liberalism to the purposes of Chinese nationalism, Yan initiated a distinctively Chinese liberal tradition that became a major component of China's modern political culture.
