A passion for facts : social surveys and the construction of the Chinese nation state, 1900-1949 / Tong Lam.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lam, Tong, 1967-

Series:

Asia Pacific modern ; 9.

Asia Pacific modern ; 9

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social surveys--China--History--20th century.

Social surveys.

China--Social conditions--1912-1949.

China.

China--Social policy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (278 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

The rise of the fact and the re-imagining of China

From divide and count to combine and count

Foolish people versus soulstealers

The nationalization of facts and the affective state

Time, space, and state effect

China as a social laboratory.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613291875

9781283291873

1283291878

9780520950351

0520950356

OCLC:

759574577