The People's Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth-Century China - Couverture souple

Schmalzer, Sigrid

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0226738604 ISBN 13 : 9780226738604

Editeur : University of Chicago Press, 2008

Synopsis

In the 1920s an international team of scientists and miners unearthed the richest evidence of human evolution the world had ever seen: Peking Man. After the communist revolution of 1949, Peking Man became a prominent figure in the movement to bring science to the people. In a new state with twin goals of crushing “superstition” and establishing a socialist society, the story of human evolution was the first lesson in Marxist philosophy offered to the masses. At the same time, even Mao’s populist commitment to mass participation in science failed to account for the power of popular culture—represented most strikingly in legends about the Bigfoot-like Wild Man—to reshape ideas about human nature.

The People’s Peking Man is a skilled social history of twentieth-century Chinese paleoanthropology and a compelling cultural—and at times comparative—history of assumptions and debates about what it means to be human. By focusing on issues that push against the boundaries of science and politics, The People’s Peking Man offers an innovative approach to modern Chinese history and the history of science.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Sigrid Schmalzer is professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the author of The People's Peking Man, also published by the University of Chicago Press, and coeditor of Visualizing Modern China.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Chicago Press
• Date d'édition: 2008
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0226738604
• ISBN 13: 9780226738604
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 366
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible