Benjamin A. Elman: A Cultural History of Modern Science in China. (New Histories of Science,Technology, and Medicine.),A Cultural History of Modern Science in China. (New Histories of Science, Technology, andMedicine.) by Benjamin A. ElmanReview by: rev. by Danian HuIsis, Vol. 98, No. 3 (September 2007), pp. 613-614Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/524230 .

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613

BOOK REVIEWS

� General

Benjamin A. Elman. A Cultural History ofModern Science in China.(NewHistories of Sci-ence, Technology, and Medicine.) 270 pp., illus.,figs., index. Cambridge, Mass./London: HarvardUniversity Press, 2006. $35 (cloth).

The history of modern Chinese science is re-ceiving increasing attention. Harvard UniversityPress alone, for example, has published fourrelevant books in the last three years, two ofthem authored by Benjamin A. Elman. Elman, aleading scholar in the history of Chinese scienceand technology, published a massive work,OnTheir Own Terms: Science in China, 1550–1900,in 2005 (it was reviewed in the September2006 issue ofIsis); he has now written an ac-cessible volume for classroom use,A CulturalHistory of Modern Science in China,that isbased on that work.Despite its title, this concise text actually con-

cerns science, technology, and medicine inChina, with a principal focus “on Chinese nat-ural studies and the literati mastery of Europeannatural learning from 1600 to 1900” (p. xi). Thebook starts with the Jesuits’ introduction of Eu-ropean mathematics and astronomy in the sev-enteenth and eighteenth centuries, which theycarried out to facilitate their missionary work.Elman shrewdly observes that the Jesuitsadopted such an approach only in China, “pre-cisely” because “many Chinese literati [and em-perors] were extremely curious about Europeanscience” (p. 1). Assisted by their collaboratorsamong the Chinese literati, Jesuit missionariesintroduced Euclidean geometry (1607) and thegeoheliocentric Tychonic system (1630s). Theformer introduced a formal logical system thatwas absent from traditional Chinese mathemat-ics, and the latter helped the Chinese overcomethe “calendar crisis” (p. 16). It should be notedthat the Jesuits who chose the Tychonic ratherthan the Copernican system in the matter of cal-endar reform had more than just religious con-cerns. For the purpose of calendar making, asJiang Xiaoyuan and others have pointed out,only the Tychonic system could beat the tradi-tional algebraic Chinese astronomical system inthe precision of predicting planetary positions—and thus it was the best choice then available.The promising Sino–Europe scientific ex-

changes by way of the Jesuits were largely in-terrupted in the eighteenth century, a breakdownhistorians usually blame on the “Controversy ofRites,” a standoff between the Vatican and Bei-jing. Elman stresses that the breakdownwas “notdue to lack of Chinese interest” in scientific andmathematical knowledge but “caused by the de-mise of the Jesuits worldwide” (p. 2).In the aftermath of the controversy, Chinese

literati “contended that European learning wasrooted in China’s ancient classics” (p. 5), an ideaEmperor Kangxi (r. 1662–1722) endorsed andpromoted. Kangxi’s role in China’s scientific de-velopment was intriguing, important, and con-troversial. An amateur of Western science him-self, Kangxi seemed to have opportunities toadvance Chinese science substantially. Indeed,his patronage of Mei Wending apparently raisedthe social standing of Chinese mathematicians(p. 36); yet his ignorance and arrogance delayedthe introduction of algebraic notational forms for150 years. Furthermore, the Sino–European gapin mathematics and astronomy was further en-larged during Kangxi’s reign. The Chinese his-torian of science Xi Zezong even blamed Kang-xi’s erroneous policy for “China’s scientificslide” (Sunday Times,Singapore, 3 Oct. 1999).Regrettably, Elman does not offer more discus-sion on these issues.After the First Opium War (1839–1842),

Protestant missionaries came to the newlyopened treaty ports, where they translated moreWestern scientific works during the 1850s; thusresumed the scientific transmission from theWest. Among the most important works werethose translated by Li Shanlan, Alexander Wy-lie, and Joseph Edkins on calculus and Newto-nian mechanics. Although the Chinese were alsostrongly interested in Newton’sPrincipia, nocomplete translation was available before thetwentieth century.After repeated humiliations by Western pow-

ers and the long and strenuous struggle to over-come the Taiping Rebellion, reform-minded of-ficials and literati recognized the power ofWestern science and technology. They thenlaunched the Self-Strengthening Movement inthe 1860s and took the initiative in sponsoringand supporting scientific translation. In contrastwith the contemporaneous Japanese practice,however, the Chinese continued to rely on for-eign missionaries for translations until the endof the century, a fatal weakness. As a result, the

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614 BOOK REVIEWS—ISIS, 98 : 3 (2007)

missionaries’ intentions and capabilities set thelimits on the depth and scope of scientific trans-mission. There were certainly other restrictionsimposed by the government, and the translatorswerenot “free to choose books for translation”(p. 169). As Elman himself points out, at Jiang-nan Arsenal “[John] Fryer’s work was narrowlydefined to translate Western books on manufac-turing” (p. 173).The Self-Strengthening reform, which began

a decade earlier than similar efforts in Meiji Ja-pan, ended with the disastrous Chinese defeat inthe Sino–Japanese war (1894–1895). Accordingto Elman, Chinese reformers and revolutionariessince that time “increasingly demeaned their tra-ditional sciences as incompatible with the uni-versal findings of modern science.” Conse-quently, a “failure narrative” that tends to viewQing China as “irrevocably weak and backwardin contrast to a powerful Europe and a rapidlyindustrializing Japan” emerged (p. 8). Elman de-nounces this “failure narrative,” for it has un-dervalued the contemporary scientific and tech-nological achievements “in light of the increasedtraining in military technology and education inWestern science available to Chinese after 1865”(p. 191). Elman’s historiographical arguments,though likely controversial, are admirably boldand will be thought provoking for students aswell as scholars.In this concise but comprehensive new book,

Elman makes his masterful synthesis of thescholarship in the field—including his own—accessible to nonspecialists. A textbook treatingmodern Chinese science up to 1900, longawaited, has at last emerged.

DANIAN HU

Mikael Hard; Andrew Jamison. Hubris andHybrids: A Cultural History of Technology andScience.xv � 335 pp., bibl., index. New York:Routledge, 2005. $29.95 (paper).

The “hubris” and “hybrids” of the title of thisvolume are intended to form an organizing setof themes for a new look at the history of tech-nology and science called a “cultural history.”After identifying science-based technologies as“threats and opportunities,” which “representrisks and dangers, as well as profit and poten-tial,” Mikael Hard and Andrew Jamison intro-duce the basic thesis of their book: “Onlythrough successful processes of cultural appro-priation can we manage to tame or control thehubris that is fundamental to the innovativespirit. And only by becominghybrids,combin-

ing the human and the nonhuman, the technicaland the social, are we able to make effective useof our scientific and technological achieve-ments” (p. xiii). Unfortunately, despite the sug-gestive language, there is not much that is newhere.The three key concepts—“hubris,” “hybrid,”

and “cultural appropriation”—really add verylittle to a sweeping, broad-brush look at roughlyfour hundred years of primarily Western history.“Hubris” is used as shorthand for the old themethat humans constantly seem to reach beyondtheir abilities. “Hybrid” refers to the use of tech-nologies—nothing more. “Cultural appropria-tion” simply refers to the assimilation of newtechnologies and their distribution throughout asociety. There is an interesting chapter on India,China, and Japan that unfortunately just seemsstuck in. Nothing else is done with the East andtechnology. Other topics include the origins ofwhat the authors rather anachronistically call“technoscience” in the sixteenth- and seven-teenth-century scientific revolution; a recastingof the old technology-as-applied-science themein terms of the cultural appropriation of scienceas industrialization; public and private hygieneand sanitation; and environmentalism and sus-tainable technology. All of these topics are ad-dressed at a fairly high level of abstraction—some, such as the origins of technoscience, notvery successfully—with an occasional quicksnapshot of a particular technology or scientificdevelopment.The history is told in the language of post-

modern social science and is heavy with jargon.The word “hegemonic” appears so often that thereader rapidly starts to criticize the Routledgeeditor for failure to use a thesaurus. Equally dis-turbing is the authors’ tendency to move backand forth across history, pointing out dubioussimilarities among developments. For example,speaking of the autostrada and autobahn systemsof roads and how they were constructed so as toblend into the countryside, the authors jumpbackward to a brief allusion to the appeal ofnineteenth-century pastoral visions, then for-ward to post–World War II Europe, concludingwith “In a way, one could say the EuropeanUnion has been built on highways” (p. 192)—all in three paragraphs.Finally, while there are lots of very sweeping

claims, there are few arguments and little evi-dence put forth in their support. Thus: “Boys,much more strongly than girls, are socializedinto a world of mechanics, first by playing withtoy cars, then by learning to repair a flat tire, bydriving and trimming a moped, and later by

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