A Passion for Facts

Social Surveys and the Construction of the Chinese Nation-State, 1900–1949

Nonfiction, History, Asian, Asia
Cover of the book A Passion for Facts by Tong Lam, University of California Press
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Author: Tong Lam ISBN: 9780520950351
Publisher: University of California Press Publication: November 1, 2011
Imprint: University of California Press Language: English
Author: Tong Lam
ISBN: 9780520950351
Publisher: University of California Press
Publication: November 1, 2011
Imprint: University of California Press
Language: English

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.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

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.

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