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A Passion for Facts

Social Surveys and the Construction of the Chinese Nation-State, 1900–1949
by Tong Lam (Author)
Hardcover eBook
Price: $85.00 / £71.00
Publication Date: Nov 2011
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 280
ISBN: 9780520267862
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 7 b/w photographs, 1 line illustration
Series:
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About the Book

In this path-breaking book, Tong Lam examines the emergence of the “culture of fact” in modern China, showing how elites and intellectuals sought to transform the dynastic empire into a nation-state, thereby ensuring its survival. Lam argues that an epistemological break away from traditional modes of understanding the observable world began around the turn of the twentieth century. Tracing the Neo-Confucian school of evidentiary research and the modern departure from it, Lam shows how, through the rise of the social survey, “the fact” became a basic conceptual medium and source of truth. In focusing on China’s social survey movement, A Passion for Facts analyzes how information generated by a range of research practices—census, sociological investigation, and ethnography—was mobilized by competing political factions to imagine, manage, and remake the nation.

About the Author

Tong Lam is Associate Professor of History at the University of Toronto.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The Rise of the Fact and the Reimagining of China
2. From Divide and Rule to Combine and Count
3. Foolish People versus Soulstealers
4. The Nationalization of Facts and the Affective State
5. Time, Space, and State Effect
6. China as a Social Laboratory

Epilogue

Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

“A rich and focused work that will appeal to anyone interested in the ways that the concept of the modern nation is shaped by the histories of science, soulstealing, society, and sentiment.”
— New Bks In East Asian Stds
"Tong Lam's rich and provocative [study] should be of interest to all scholars of China, and because Lam engages so seriously with such an impressive range of secondary literatures, his work should also attract historians focusing on science, colonialism, modernity, and the state in other areas of the world as well."
— American Historical Review
"Readers will find A Passion for Facts compellingly written, thoroughly researched, and thought-provoking."
— The China Beat
"[A] rich, persuasive study."
— Cross-Currents
"Ingenious. . . . Scholars of China as well as scholars outside that field will find much of interest in [Lam's] book."
— Journal of Interdisciplinary History
"[A] rich and sensitive exploration of social knowledge production in modern China. . . . Lam’s intensive and engaging book . . . inspires readers to think of more questions and thus opens more topics for future research."
— East Asian Science, Technology and Society
"This is an important book. It is well researched, concisely written, and intellectually ambitious. . . . Lam’s excellent book deserves to be widely read."
— The Journal of Asian Studies
"An engaging study. . . . It is a major contribution to our understanding of the multifarious processes of nationbuilding."
— The China Quarterly
“This fascinating book is a fundamental contribution to the global history of social science. Tong Lam demonstrates how Chinese reformers struggled to build a modern society on a foundation of facts and statistics. Their ambitions were no mere dream, but were made real in a prodigious social survey movement which aimed as much to enlighten peasants as to inform administrators.” —Theodore Porter, author of Trust in Numbers

“Lam’s approach is highly original. A Passion for Facts presents an impressive host of new material from Chinese and American archives that challenges interpretations of China and Chinese exceptionalism or independent development. Lam makes a compelling argument that the techniques developed in the early twentieth century and refined over several decades have been critical to state-building in China.” —James L. Hevia, author of English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth Century China

“Lam supersedes the current ‘China-centered approach’ and the earlier framework that explained ‘modern China’ in light of global colonialism. He illuminates how the search for ‘facts’ empowered modern Chinese to reimagine their social and political realities in a global colonial context.” —Benjamin A. Elman, Chair, East Asian Studies Department, Princeton University