Neither Donkey Nor Horse - Medicine in the Struggle Over China's Modernity

Informationen zum Autor Sean Hsiang-lin Lei is associate research fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, and associate professor at the Institute of Science, Technology, and Society at National Yang-Ming University. Klappentext "Neither Donkey Nor Horse "tells the story of how Chinese medicine was transformed from the antithesis of modernity in the early twentieth century into a potent symbol and vehicle for China s struggle with it half a century later. Instead of viewing this transition as derivative of the political history of modern China, Sean Hsiang-lin Lei argues that China s medical history had a life of its own and at times directly influenced the ideological struggle over the meaning of China s modernity and the Chinese state. Far from being a remnant of China s pre-modern past, Chinese medicine in the twentieth century co-evolved with Western medicine and the Nationalist state, undergoing a profound transformationinstitutionally, epistemologically, and materiallythat justifies our recognizing it as modern Chinese medicine. This new medicine was derided as neither donkey nor horse, because it attempted to integrate modern Western medicine into what its opponents considered the pre-modern and un-scientific practices of Chinese medicine. Its historic rise is of crucial importance for the general history of modernity in China, fundamentally challenging the conception of modernity that rejected the possibility of productive crossbreeding between the modern and the traditional. By exploring the co-production of modern Chinese medicine and China s modernity, Lei offers both a political history of medicine and a medical history of the Chinese state. "Neither Donkey Nor Horse "synthesizes into a single historical narrative what was previously separated into three independent histories: the history of Western medicine in China, the history of Chinese medicine, and the political history of the state."

Product details

• Authors: Sean Hsiang Lei, Sean Hsiang-lin Lei, Sean Hsiang&, Sean Hsiang-lin Lei
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.06.2016
• EAN: 9780226379401
• ISBN: 978-0-226-37940-1
• No. of pages: 394
• Dimensions: 152 mm x 231 mm x 22 mm
• Series: Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute; Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian in; Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute; Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University; Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian in; Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian In (CHUP)
• Subjects: Guides > Health; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Medicine > General; China, Ethnic Studies, MEDICAL / History, History of Medicine, Black & Asian Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / Asian Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / General