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China is emerging as a new superpower in science and technology,
reflected in the success of its spacecraft and high-velocity Maglev
trains. While many seek to understand the rise of China as a
technologically-based power, the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s
may seem an unlikely era to explore for these insights. Despite the
widespread verdict of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as
an unmitigated disaster for China, a number of recent scholars have
called for re-examining Maoist science-both in China and in the
West. At one time Western observers found much to admire in
Chairman Mao's mass science, his egalitarian effort to take science
out of the ivory tower and place it in the hands of the
disenfranchised peasant, the loyal worker, and the patriot soldier.
Chunjuan Nancy Wei and Darryl E. Brock have assembled a rich mix of
talents and topics related to the fortunes and misfortunes of
science, technology, and medicine in modern China, while tracing
its roots to China's other great student revolution-the May Fourth
Movement. Historians of science, political scientists,
mathematicians, and others analyze how Maoist science served modern
China in nationalism, socialism, and nation-building-and also where
it failed the nation and the Chinese people. If the Cultural
Revolution contributed to China's emerging space program and
catalyzed modern malaria treatments based on Traditional Chinese
Medicine, it also provided the origins of a science talent gap and
the milieu from which a one-child policy would arise. Given the
fundamental importance of China today, and of East Asia generally,
it is imperative to have a better understanding of its most recent
scientific history, but especially that history in a period of
crisis and how that crisis was resolved. What is at issue here is
not only the specific domain of the history of science, but the
social and scientific policies of China generally as they developed
and were applied prior to, during, and after the Cultural
Revolution.
China is emerging as a new superpower in science and technology,
reflected in the success of its spacecraft and high-velocity Maglev
trains. While many seek to understand the rise of China as a
technologically-based power, the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s
may seem an unlikely era to explore for these insights. Despite the
widespread verdict of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as
an unmitigated disaster for China, a number of recent scholars have
called for re-examining Maoist science-both in China and in the
West. At one time Western observers found much to admire in
Chairman Mao's mass science, his egalitarian effort to take science
out of the ivory tower and place it in the hands of the
disenfranchised peasant, the loyal worker, and the patriot soldier.
Chunjuan Nancy Wei and Darryl E. Brock have assembled a rich mix of
talents and topics related to the fortunes and misfortunes of
science, technology, and medicine in modern China, while tracing
its roots to China's other great student revolution-the May Fourth
Movement. Historians of science, political scientists,
mathematicians, and others analyze how Maoist science served modern
China in nationalism, socialism, and nation-building-and also where
it failed the nation and the Chinese people. If the Cultural
Revolution contributed to China's emerging space program and
catalyzed modern malaria treatments based on Traditional Chinese
Medicine, it also provided the origins of a science talent gap and
the milieu from which a one-child policy would arise. Given the
fundamental importance of China today, and of East Asia generally,
it is imperative to have a better understanding of its most recent
scientific history, but especially that history in a period of
crisis and how that crisis was resolved. What is at issue here is
not only the specific domain of the history of science, but the
social and scientific policies of China generally as they developed
and were applied prior to, during, and after the Cultural
Revolution.
In the 1920s an international team of scientists and miners
unearthed the richest evidence of human evolution the world had
ever seen: Peking Man. After the communist revolution of 1949,
Peking Man became a prominent figure in the movement to bring
science to the people. In a new state with twin goals of crushing
"superstition" and establishing a socialist society, the story of
human evolution was the first lesson in Marxist philosophy offered
to the masses. At the same time, even Mao's populist commitment to
mass participation in science failed to account for the power of
popular culture--represented most strikingly in legends about the
Bigfoot-like Wild Man--to reshape ideas about human nature.
"The People's Peking Man "is a skilled social history of
twentieth-century Chinese paleoanthropology and a compelling
cultural--and at times comparative--history of assumptions and
debates about what it means to be human. By focusing on issues that
push against the boundaries of science and politics, "The People's
Peking Man "offers an innovative approach to modern Chinese history
and the history of science.
The Maoist state's dominance over Chinese society, achieved through
such watersheds as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural
Revolution, is well known. Maoism at the Grassroots reexamines this
period of transformation and upheaval from a new perspective, one
that challenges the standard state-centered view. Bringing together
scholars from China, Europe, North America, and Taiwan, this volume
marshals new research to reveal a stunning diversity of individual
viewpoints and local experiences during China's years of high
socialism. Focusing on the period from the mid-1950s to 1980, the
authors provide insights into the everyday lives of citizens across
social strata, ethnicities, and regions. They explore how ordinary
men and women risked persecution and imprisonment in order to
assert personal beliefs and identities. Many displayed a shrewd
knack for negotiating the maze-like power structures of everyday
Maoism, appropriating regime ideology in their daily lives while
finding ways to express discontent and challenge the state's
pervasive control. Heterogeneity, limited pluralism, and tensions
between official and popular culture were persistent features of
Maoism at the grassroots. Men had gay relationships in factory
dormitories, teenagers penned searing complaints in diaries,
mentally ill individuals cursed Mao, farmers formed secret
societies and worshipped forbidden spirits. These diverse
undercurrents were as representative of ordinary people's lives as
the ideals promulgated in state propaganda.
The narrator is a composite of people Pu Zhelong influenced in his
work. With further context from Melanie Chan's historically precise
watercolors, this story will immerse young readers in Chinese
culture, the natural history of insects, and the use of biological
controls in farming. Backmatter provides context and background for
this lovely, sophisticated picture book about nature, science, and
Communist China. "The first time I saw a scientist in my village
was also the first time I saw a wasp hatch out of a moth's egg,"
writes the narrator of this picture book about Chinese scientist Pu
Zhelong. "In that moment I could not have said which was the more
unexpected-or the more miraculous." In the early 1960s, while
Rachel Carson was writing and defending Silent Spring in the U.S.,
Pu Zhelong was teaching peasants in Mao Zedong's Communist China
how to forgo pesticides and instead use parasitic wasps to control
the moths that were decimating crops and contributing to China's
widespread famine. This story told through the memories of a farm
boy (a composite of people inspired by Pu Zhelong) will immerse
young readers in Chinese culture, the natural history of insects,
and sustainable agriculture. Backmatter provides historical context
for this lovely, sophisticated picture book. The author, Sigrid
Schmalzer, won the Joseph Levenson Post-1900 Book Prize for 2018
for her book Red Revolution, Green Revolution. This is the most
prestigious prize for a book about Chinese history, and the book
upon which Moth and Wasp, Soil and Ocean is based. Fountas &
Pinnell Level U
Visualizing Modern China: Image, History, and Memory, 1750-Present
offers a sophisticated yet accessible interpretation of modern
Chinese history through visual imagery. With rich illustrations and
a companion website, it is an ideal textbook for college-level
courses on modern Chinese history and on modern visual culture. The
introduction provides a methodological framework and historical
overview, while the chronologically arranged chapters use engaging
case studies to explore important themes. Topics include: Qing
court ritual, rebellion and war, urban/rural relations, art and
architecture, sports, the Chinese diaspora, state politics, film
propaganda and censorship, youth in the Cultural Revolution,
environmentalism, and Internet culture. Companion website:
http://visualizingmodernchina.org
For the first time, this book compiles original documents from
Science for the People, the most important radical science movement
in U.S. history. Between 1969 and 1989, Science for the People
mobilized American scientists, teachers, and students to practice a
socially and economically just science, rather than one that served
militarism and corporate profits. Through research, writing,
protest, and organizing, members sought to demystify scientific
knowledge and embolden ""the people"" to take science and
technology into their own hands. The movement's numerous
publications were crucial to the formation of science and
technology studies, challenging mainstream understandings of
science as ""neutral"" and instead showing it as inherently
political. Its members, some at prominent universities, became
models for politically engaged science and scholarship by using
their knowledge to challenge, rather than uphold, the social,
political, and economic status quo. Highlighting Science for the
People's activism and intellectual interventions in a range of
areas - including militarism, race, gender, medicine, agriculture,
energy, and global affairs - this volume offers vital contributions
to today's debates on science, justice, democracy, sustainability,
and political power.
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