The Power of Print in Modern China: Intellectuals and Industrial Publishing from the End of Empire to Maoist State Socialism (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University)

Amid early twentieth-century China's epochal shifts, a vital and prolific commercial publishing industry emerged. Recruiting late Qing literati, foreign-trained academics, and recent graduates of the modernized school system to work as authors and editors, publishers produced textbooks, reference books, book series, and reprints of classical texts in large quantities at a significant profit. Work for major publishers provided a living to many Chinese intellectuals and offered them a platform to transform Chinese cultural life.In__The Power of Print in Modern China__, Robert Culp explores the world of commercial publishing to offer a new perspective on modern China's cultural transformations. Culp examines China's largest and most influential publishing companies--Commercial Press, Zhonghua Book Company, and World Book Company--during the late Qing and Republican periods and into the early years of the People's Republic. He reconstructs editors' cultural activities and work lives as a lens onto the role of intellectuals in cultural change. Examining China's distinct modes of industrial publishing, Culp explains the emergence of the modern Chinese intellectual through commercial and industrial processes rather than solely through political revolution and social movements. An original account of Chinese intellectual and cultural history as well as global book history,__The Power of Print in Modern China__illuminates the production of new forms of knowledge and culture in the twentieth century. Amid early twentieth-century China's epochal shifts, a vital and prolific commercial publishing industry emerged. Recruiting late Qing literati, foreign-trained academics, and recent graduates of the modernized school system to work as authors and editors, publishers produced textbooks, reference books, book series, and reprints of classical texts in large quantities at a significant profit. Work for major publishers provided a living to many Chinese intellectuals and offered them a platform to transform Chinese cultural life. In The Power of Print in Modern China, Robert Culp explores the world of commercial publishing to offer a new perspective on modern China's cultural transformations. Culp examines China's largest and most influential publishing companies--Commercial Press, Zhonghua Book Company, and World Book Company - during the late Qing and Republican periods and into the early years of the People's Republic. He reconstructs editors' cultural activities and work lives as a lens onto the role of intellectuals in cultural change. Examining the distinct Chinese modes of industrial publishing, Culp explains the emergence of the modern Chinese intellectual through commercial and industrial processes rather than through political revolution and social movements. An original account of Chinese intellectual and cultural history as well as global book history, The Power of Print in Modern China offers new perspectives on the production of new forms of knowledge and culture in the twentieth century Amid early twentieth-century China's epochal shifts, a vital and prolific commercial publishing industry emerged. Recruiting late Qing literati, foreign-trained academics, and recent graduates of the modernized school system to work as authors and editors, publishers produced textbooks, reference books, book series, and reprints of classical texts in large quantities at a significant profit. Work for major publishers provided a living to many Chinese intellectuals and offered them a platform to transform Chinese cultural life. In The Power of Print in Modern China , Robert Culp explores the world of commercial publishing to offer a new perspective on modern China's cultural transformations. Culp examines China's largest and most influential publishing companies--Commercial Press, Zhonghua Book Company, and World Book Company--during the late Qing and Republican periods and into the early years of the People's Republic. He reconstructs editors' cultural activities and work lives as a lens onto the role of intellectuals in cultural change. Examining China's distinct modes of industrial publishing, Culp explains the emergence of the modern Chinese intellectual through commercial and industrial processes rather than solely through political revolution and social movements. An original account of Chinese intellectual and cultural history as well as global book history, The Power of Print in Modern China illuminates the production of new forms of knowledge and culture in the twentieth century. Table of Contents 6 List of Figures 8 Acknowledgments 10 List of Abbreviations 14 Introduction 20 Part I. Recruiting Talent, Mobilizing Labor 44 1. Becoming Editors: Late Qing Literati’s Scholarly Lives and Cultural Production 46 2. Universities or Factories? Academics, Petty Intellectuals, and the Industrialization of Mental Labor 72 Part I Epilogue: War, Revolution, Hiatus 106 Part II. Creating Culture 112 3. Transforming Word and Concept Through Textbooks and Dictionaries 114 4. Repackaging the Past: Reproducing Classics Through Industrial Publishing 145 5. Introducing New Worlds of Knowledge: Series Publications and the Transformation of China’s Knowledge Culture 174 Part III. Legacies of Industrialized Cultural Production 202 6. Print Industrialism and State Socialism: Public-Private Joint Management and Divisions of Labor in the Early PRC Publishing Industry 204 7. Negotiated Cultural Production in the Pedagogical State 233 Conclusion 267 Notes 282 Bibliography 342 Index 372