In this learned, yet readable, book, Joseph McDermott introduces the history of the book in China in the late imperial period from 1000 to 1800. He assumes little knowledge of Chinese history or culture and compares the Chinese experience with books with that of other civilizations, particularly the European. Yet he deals with a wide range of issues in the history of the book in China and presents novel analyses of the changes in Chinese woodblock bookmaking over these centuries. He presents a new view of when the printed book replaced the manuscript and what drove that substitution. He explores the distribution and marketing structure of books, and writes fascinatingly on the history of book collecting and about access to private and government book collections. In drawing on a great deal of Chinese, Japanese, and Western research this book provides a broad account of the way Chinese books were printed, distributed, and consumed by literati and scholars, mainly in the lower Yangzi delta, the cultural center of China during these centuries. It introduces interesting personalities, ranging from wily book collectors to an indigent shoe-repairman collector. And, it discusses the obstacles to the formation of a truly national printed culture for both the well-educated and the struggling reader in recent times. This broad and comprehensive account of the development of printed Chinese culture from 1000 to 1800 is written for anyone interested in the history of the book. It also offers important new insights into book culture and its place in society for the student of Chinese history and culture. 'A brilliant piece of synthetic research as well as a delightful read, it offers a history of the Chinese book to the eighteenth century that is without equal.' - Timothy Brook, University of British Columbia 'Writers, scribes, engravers, printers, binders, publishers, distributors, dealers, literati, scholars, librarians, collectors, voracious readers — the full gamut of a vibrant book culture in China over one thousand years — are examined with eloquence and perception by Joseph McDermott in The Social History of the Book. His lively exploration will be of consuming interest to bibliophiles of every persuasion.' - Nicholas A. Basbanes, author of A Gentle Madness, Patience and Fortitude, A Splendor of Letters, and Every Book Its Reader Joseph McDermott is presently Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, and University Lecturer in Chinese at Cambridge University. He has published widely on Chinese social and economic history, most recently on the economy of the Song (or, Sung) dynasty for the Cambridge History of China. He has edited State and Court Ritual in China and Art and Power in East Asia.

Despite the importance of books and the written word in Chinese society, the history of the book in China is a topic that has been little explored. This pioneering volume of essays, written by historians, art historians, and literary scholars, introduces the major issues in the social and cultural history of the book in late imperial China. Informed by many insights from the rich literature on the history of the Western book, these essays investigate the relationship between the manuscript and print culture; the emergence of urban and rural publishing centers; the expanding audience for books; the development of niche markets and specialized publishing of fiction, drama, non-Han texts, and genealogies; and more.

Introducing the concept of state-sponsored platformization, this volume shows the complexity behind the central role the party-state plays in shaping social media platforms. The party-state increasingly penetrates commercial social media while aspiring to turn its own media agencies into platforms. Yet state-sponsored platformization does not necessarily produce the Chinese Communist Party’s desired outcomes. Citizens continue to appropriate social media for creative public engagement at the same time that more people are managing their online settings to reduce or refuse connection, inducing new forms of crafted resistance to hyper-social media connectivity. The wide-ranging essays presented here explore the mobile radio service Ximalaya.FM, Alibaba’s evolution into a multi-platform ecosystem, livestreaming platforms in the United States and China, the role of Twitter in Trump’s North Korea diplomacy, user-generated content in the news media, the emergence of new social agents mediating between state and society, social media art projects, Chinese and US scientists’ use of social media, and reluctance to engage with WeChat. Ultimately, readers will find that the ten chapters in this volume contribute significant new research and insights to the fast-growing scholarship on social media in China at a time when online communication is increasingly constrained by international struggles over political control and privacy issues.

In a speech opening the nineteenth Chinese Communist Party Congress meeting in October 2017, President Xi Jinping spoke of a “New Era” characterized by new types of communication convergence between the government, Party, and state media. His speech signaled that the role of the media is now more important than ever in cultivating the Party’s image at home and disseminating it abroad. Indeed, communication technologies, people, and platforms are converging in new ways around the world, not just in China. This process raises important questions about information flows, control, and regulation that directly affect the future of US–China relations. Just a year before Xi proclaimed the New Era, scholars had convened in Beijing at a conference cohosted by the Communication University of China and the US-based National Communication Association to address these questions. How do China and the United States envision each other, and how do our interlinked imaginaries create both opportunities for and obstacles to greater understanding and strengthened relations? Would the convergence of new media technologies, Party control, and emerging notions of netizenship in China lead to a new age of opening and reform, greater Party domination, or perhaps some new and intriguing combination of repression and freedom? Communication Convergence in Contemporary China presents international perspectives on US–China relations in this New Era with case studies that offer readers informative snapshots of how these relations are changing on the ground, in the lived realities of our daily communication habits.

The first full-length monograph on the history of the translation of the Bible into Chinese, this book tells a fascinating story beginning with Western missionaries working closely with Chinese assistants. They struggled for one hundred years to produce a version that would meet the needs of a growing Chinese church, succeeding in 1919 with publication of the Chinese Union Version (CUV). Celebrating the CUV’s centennial, this volume explores the uniqueness and contemporary challenges in the context of the history of Chinese Bible translation, a topic that is attracting more and more attention. Peng’s experiences give her a unique perspective and several advantages in conducting this research. Like the majority of readers of the CUV, she grew up in mainland China. When Chinese Christians went through severe political and economic ordeals, she was there to witness the CUV comforting those who were suffering under persecution. She has participated in Chinese Bible revision under the United Bible Societies. She was also director of the Commission on Bible Publication at the China Christian Council and chief editor of the CUV concise annotated version (1998).

Chinese Money in Global Context: Historic Junctures Between 600 BCE and 2012 offers a groundbreaking interpretation of the Chinese monetary system, charting its evolution by examining key moments in history and placing them in international perspective. Expertly navigating primary sources in multiple languages and across three millennia, Niv Horesh explores the trajectory of Chinese currency from the birth of coinage to the current global financial crisis. His narrative highlights the way that Chinese money developed in relation to the currencies of other countries, paying special attention to the origins of paper money; the relationship between the West's ascendancy and its mineral riches; the linkages between pre-modern finance and political economy; and looking ahead to the possible globalization of the RMB, the currency of the People's Republic of China. This analysis casts new light on the legacy of China's financial system both retrospectively and at present—when China's global influence looms large.

In The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier, Benno Weiner provides the first in-depth study of an ethnic minority region during the first decade of the People's Republic of China: the Amdo region in the Sino-Tibetan borderland. Employing previously inaccessible local archives as well as other rare primary sources, he demonstrates that the Communist Party's goal in 1950s Amdo was not just state-building but also nation-building. Such an objective required the construction of narratives and policies capable of convincing Tibetans of their membership in a wider political community. As Weiner shows, however, early efforts to gradually and organically transform a vast multiethnic empire into a singular nation-state lost out to a revolutionary impatience, demanding more immediate paths to national integration and socialist transformation. This led in 1958 to communization, then to large-scale rebellion and its brutal pacification. Rather than joining voluntarily, Amdo was integrated through the widespread, often indiscriminate use of violence, a violence that lingers in the living memory of Amdo Tibetans and others.