Book ID: CBB751217274

Vernacular Industrialism in China: Local Innovation and Translated Technologies in the Making of a Cosmetics Empire, 1900–1940 (2020)

unapi

Lean, Eugenia (Author)


Columbia University Press


Publication Date: 2020
Physical Details: 416
Language: English

In early twentieth-century China, Chen Diexian (1879–1940) was a maverick entrepreneur―at once a prolific man of letters and captain of industry, a magazine editor and cosmetics magnate. He tinkered with chemistry in his private studio, used local cuttlefish to source magnesium carbonate, and published manufacturing tips in how-to columns. In a rapidly changing society, Chen copied foreign technologies and translated manufacturing processes from abroad to produce adaptations of global commodities that bested foreign brands. Engaging in the worlds of journalism, industry, and commerce, he drew on literati practices associated with late-imperial elites but deployed them in novel ways within a culture of educated tinkering that generated industrial innovation.Through the lens of Chen’s career, Eugenia Lean explores how unlikely individuals devised unconventional, homegrown approaches to industry and science in early twentieth-century China. She contends that Chen’s activities exemplify “vernacular industrialism,” the pursuit of industry and science outside of conventional venues, often involving ad hoc forms of knowledge and material work. Lean shows how vernacular industrialists accessed worldwide circuits of law and science and experimented with local and global processes of manufacturing to navigate, innovate, and compete in global capitalism. In doing so, they presaged the approach that has helped fuel China’s economic ascent in the twenty-first century. Rather than conventional narratives that depict China as belatedly borrowing from Western technology, Vernacular Industrialism in China offers a new understanding of industrialization, going beyond material factors to show the central role of culture and knowledge production in technological and industrial change.

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Reviewed By

Review Xavier Paulès (2021) Review of "Vernacular Industrialism in China: Local Innovation and Translated Technologies in the Making of a Cosmetics Empire, 1900–1940". East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine. unapi

Review Hyungsub Choi (2022) Review of "Vernacular Industrialism in China: Local Innovation and Translated Technologies in the Making of a Cosmetics Empire, 1900–1940". East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (pp. 448-451). unapi

Review Fei-Hsien Wang (Autumn 2021) Review of "Vernacular Industrialism in China: Local Innovation and Translated Technologies in the Making of a Cosmetics Empire, 1900–1940". Business History Review (pp. 590-593). unapi

Review Linda Grove (July 2021) Review of "Vernacular Industrialism in China: Local Innovation and Translated Technologies in the Making of a Cosmetics Empire, 1900–1940". Technology and Culture (pp. 958-959). unapi

Review Emilie Takayama (Autumn 2020) Review of "Vernacular Industrialism in China: Local Innovation and Translated Technologies in the Making of a Cosmetics Empire, 1900–1940". Business History Review (pp. 666-669). unapi

Review Victor Seow (2021) Review of "Vernacular Industrialism in China: Local Innovation and Translated Technologies in the Making of a Cosmetics Empire, 1900–1940". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 624-626). unapi

Multimedia Object Lukas Rieppel; Lean, Eugenia (2020) Eugenia Lean, “Vernacular Industrialism in China” (Columbia UP, 2020). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB751217274/

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Authors & Contributors
Lean, Eugenia
Xuetao Li
Haw, Stephen G.
Ma, Shaoling
Yi, Yuan
Paul Netter
Concepts
Technology and society
Manufacturing
Science and industry
Chemistry
Technology and culture
Cosmetics; perfumes
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
21st century
Qing dynasty (China, 1644-1912)
Modern
Ancient
Places
China
Republic of China (1912-1949)
East Asia
United States
Japan
Germany
Institutions
Republican China (1911–49)
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
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