Cultures of knowledge : technology in Chinese history / edited by Dagmar Schäfer.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [349]-385) and index.

Introduction / Dagmar Schäfer -- Political, social and economic factors affecting the transmission of knowledge in early modern China / William T. Rowe -- Silken strands: making technology work in China / Dagmar Schäfer -- Technological transmission in China and Europe: a comparative view / Pamela O. Long -- Picturing Yu controlling the flood: technology, ecology, and emperorship in Northern Song China / Heping Liu -- Sympathetic relations: foreign craftsmen at the Qing court / Luo Wenhua -- Symbolic technology politics / Wolfgang Lèfevre -- Ceramics for local and global markets: Jingdezhen's agora of technologies / Anne Gerritsen -- Temples, technology, and material culture in Shouzhou, Anhui / Susan Naquin -- Framing European technology in seventeenth-century China: rhetorical strategies in Jesuit paratexts / Joachim Kurtz -- The knowledge agora: the role of the officials / Matteo Valleriani -- Making technology history / Martina Siebert -- The biographer's view of craftsmanship / Martin Hofmann -- Chinese literati and the transmission of technological knowledge: the case of agriculture / Francesca Bray -- Two cultures speaking with one voice? Invention, ingenuity, and agricultural innovation in pre-industrial European and Chinese discourse / Marcus Popplow.

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Looking at knowledge transmission as a cultural feature, this book isolates and examines the individual factors that affect knowledge in the making and created uniquely Chinese cultures of knowledge. The volume is organized into four sections: Internode, Imperial Court, Agora, and Scholarly Arts. Each has a theoretical introduction, followed by two core contributions from experts in Chinese history. The section concludes with a ‘reflection’ by a historian of Western Technology who scrutinizes each sphere and identifies the points that reflect universal technological experience. The combination of broadly sketched theoretical introductions and detailed core contributions provides an unparalleled insight into pre-modern Chinese history from the Song to early Qing dynasty, revealing Chinese attitudes towards innovation and invention.

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Introduction -- 1. The Making of an Imprint in China, 1000 - 1800 -- 2. The Ascendance of the Imprint in China -- 3. Distribution of Books and Literati Culture -- 4. The Problem of Access in the World of Chinese Learning -- 5. Ameliorations and a Community of Learning -- 6. Literati Writings and the Case of Qian Jinren 錢進仁 -- Notes -- Bibliographical Notes on Studies Useful for the Writing of This Book -- Glossary -- Index.

"Joseph McDermott traces the history of the book in China from 1000 to 1800, illustrating the Chinese experience with books through comparisons to other civilizations, particularly those in Europe. He presents novel analyses of the changes in Chinese woodblock book-making over several centuries and a new view of the period in which the printed book replaced the manuscript. He also explores the distribution and marketing structure of books and the history of book collecting. This broad and comprehensive account of the development of printed Chinese culture from 1000 to 1800 is written for anyone interested in the history of the book. It also offers important new insights into book culture and its place in society for the student of Chinese history and culture"--OCLC #239488520

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