Book ID: CBB001421327

Technology, Gender and History in Imperial China: Great Transformations Reconsidered (2013)

unapi

Bray, Francesca (Author)


Routledge


Publication Date: 2013
Physical Details: xviii + 278 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index
Language: English

What can the history of technology contribute to our understanding of late imperial China? Most stories about technology in pre-modern China follow a well-worn plot: in about 1400 after an early ferment of creativity that made it the most technologically sophisticated civilisation in the world, China entered an era of technical lethargy and decline. But how are we to reconcile this tale, which portrays China in the Ming and Qing dynasties as a dying giant that had outgrown its own strength, with the wealth of counterevidence affirming that the country remained rich, vigorous and powerful at least until the end of the eighteenth century? Does this seeming contradiction mean that the stagnation story is simply wrong, or perhaps that technology was irrelevant to how imperial society worked? Or does it imply that historians of technology should ask better questions about what technology was, what it did and what it meant in pre-modern societies like late imperial China? In this book, Francesca Bray explores subjects such as technology and ethics, technology and gendered subjectivities (both female and male), and technology and statecraft to illuminate how material settings and practices shaped topographies of everyday experience and ideologies of government, techniques of the self and technologies of the subject. Examining technologies ranging from ploughing and weaving to drawing pictures, building a house, prescribing medicine or composing a text, this book offers a rich insight into the interplay between the micro- and macro-politics of everyday life and the workings of governmentality in late imperial China, showing that gender principles were woven into the very fabric of empire, from cosmology and ideologies of rule to the material foundations of the state and the everyday practices of the domestic sphere. This authoritative text will be welcomed by students and scholars of Chinese history, as well as those working on global history and the histories of gender, technology and agriculture. Furthermore, it will be of great use to those interested in social and cultural anthropology and material culture.

...More
Reviewed By

Review Angela Ki Che Leung (2015) Review of "Technology, Gender and History in Imperial China: Great Transformations Reconsidered". East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (pp. 319-321). unapi

Review Kim, Nanny (2014) Review of "Technology, Gender and History in Imperial China: Great Transformations Reconsidered". Technology and Culture (pp. 740-742). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001421327/

Similar Citations

Article Min, Zong-dian; (2003)
A Record of Ming-Qing Agricultural Treatises Awaiting Inquiry (/isis/citation/CBB000600160/)

Article Li, Xinsheng; Wang, Siming; (2014)
Introduction and Spread of Pumpkin and Their Influence in the Southeast Coastal Areas of China (/isis/citation/CBB796942600/)

Article Yuda Yang; Nanny Kim; (2019)
Texts and Technologies in Chinese Silver Metallurgy, Twelfth to Nineteenth Centuries (/isis/citation/CBB305546264/)

Article Chen, Yue; (2009)
The Influence of Jie Xuan's Cosmology in China (/isis/citation/CBB000952333/)

Thesis Simonis, Fabien; (2010)
Mad Acts, Mad Speech, and Mad People in Late Imperial Chinese Law and Medicine (/isis/citation/CBB001561116/)

Article Ma, Lai-ping; (2009)
On Xue Fengzuo's Scientific Thought (/isis/citation/CBB000952319/)

Book Kurtz, Joachim; (2011)
The Discovery of Chinese Logic (/isis/citation/CBB001202431/)

Article Golas, Peter J.; (2003)
Technical Representation in China: Tools and Techniques of the Trade (/isis/citation/CBB000410984/)

Article Wang, Guangchao; Wu, Yunhao; Sun, Xiaochun; (2008)
The Impact of the Telescope on Chinese Astronomy during the Late Ming and Early Qing Period (/isis/citation/CBB000933532/)

Article Sun, Chengsheng; (2009)
On the Composition and Circulation of Jie Xuan's Xuanji Yishu (/isis/citation/CBB000933760/)

Article Michela Bussotti; Han Qi; (2014)
Typography for a Modern World?: The Ways of Chinese Movable Types (/isis/citation/CBB818470899/)

Article Dong, Jie; Wang, Wei-dong; (2008)
Chinese Mathematicians' Researches on the Golden Section in the Early Qing Dynasty (/isis/citation/CBB000952278/)

Article Ma, Lai-ping; (2011)
Some Issues on Evaluation of Matteo Ricci (/isis/citation/CBB001250705/)

Book Schäfer, Dagmar; (2011)
The Crafting of the 10,000 Things: Knowledge and Technology in Seventeenth-Century China (/isis/citation/CBB001221706/)

Article Sun, Chengsheng; (2011)
The Transmission of Crystalline Spheres Theory to Late Ming China and Its Influence (/isis/citation/CBB001210026/)

Article Sun, Chengsheng; (2014)
The Dissemination and Influence of Three Regions Theory in Late Ming and Early Qing China (/isis/citation/CBB911929092/)

Authors & Contributors
Sun, Chengsheng
Ma, Lai-ping
Li, Xinsheng
Yang, Yuda
Wang, Siming
Wu, Yunhao
Concepts
Cross-cultural interaction; cultural influence
East Asia, civilization and culture
Cosmology
Astronomy
Technology
Western world, civilization and culture
Time Periods
Qing dynasty (China, 1644-1912)
Ming dynasty (China, 1368-1644)
Yuan Dynasty (China, ca. 1260-1368)
Song Dynasty (China, 960-1279)
Modern
Medieval
Places
China
Europe
Institutions
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment