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Zusatztext "[An] interesting and important set of insights into the history of coal mining, coal imperialism, and the science and political economy of coal in China....[This study] adds a fascinating and novel layer of analysis of German imperialism and engineering at work in China...that has been missing in many of the wider discussions of imperialism and global transformations during the time period." Informationen zum Autor Shellen Xiao Wu is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Klappentext Shellen Xiao Wu is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Zusammenfassung Underground Empires examines how Chinese views of strategic mineral resources developed in the last decades of the Qing dynasty. Inhaltsverzeichnis Contents and Abstracts 1 Fueling Industrialization in the Age of Coal chapter abstract In order to understand how and why a momentous change of the Chinese worldview occurred in the late nineteenth century, chapter 1 begins with a discussion of pre-modern forms of geological knowledge in China 2 Ferdinand von Richthofen and the Geology of Imperialism chapter abstract Chapter Two examines Richthofen's contributions to Chinese views of its own mineral resources. Richthofen's career spanned the zenith of European colonial expansion in the nineteenth century, concomitant with the golden age of the railroads and steamers. His academic work on China connected the geography of the eastern seaboard to the Central Asian landmass. Yet his enduring legacy in China remains his observations of Chinese mines and estimates of Chinese mineral potential. 3 Lost and Found in Translation: Geology, Mining, and the Search for Wealth and Power chapter abstract Chapter Three discusses missionary translations of geology works in the nineteenth century. In the act of translation, geology became further entangled with the role of science in imperialism and the wealth and power of the West. Nineteenth century missionary translations of science in the treaty ports tell only a small part of the story. Focusing on the deficiencies of these translations would only miss the greater accomplishment of these foreign and Chinese translators of Western science texts as cultural intermediaries. These late nineteenth century translations introduced the field of geology to the Chinese public, but in the tumultuous political and economic environment of the late Qing period it was mining and control over mining rights that added urgency to the adoption of modern geology. 4 Engineers as the Agents of Science and Empire, 1886-1914 chapter abstract Chapter Four examines the large-scale modern enterprises opened in the interior by the Chinese themselves, including influential government figures such as Li Hongzhang and Zhang Zhidong. This chapter focuses on the people who made possible the expansion of the first modern Chinese industries while also promoting European influence on China's future development—engineers who carried their skills from technical schools and mining academies in Europe to the far reaches of empire. The German engineers who began working for Chinese in...
