The People's Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth-Century China, and: jian 張劍, kexueshetuan zai jindai Zhongguo de mingyun: yi Zhongguokexueshe wei zhongxin科學社團在 近代中國的命運: 以中國科學社為中心(The Science Association and the Change of Society in Modern China: A Study on the Science Society of China) (review)

Sigrid Schmalzer, The People’s Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth-Century China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. 336pp. ISBN: 9780226738604. Zhang, jian 張劍, kexueshetuan zai jindai Zhongguo de mingyun: yi Zhongguokexueshe wei zhongxin科學社團在 近代中國的命運 : 以中國科學社為中心(The Science Association and the Change of Society in Modern China: A Study on the Science Society of China) Jinan: Shandong chubanshe, 2005.460pp. ISBN: 7-5328-4978-3. Yu-Lin Chen Received: 8 September 2010 /Accepted: 8 September 2010 /Published online: 3 December 2010 # National Science Council, Taiwan 2010 Since the mid-nineteenth century, the most consistent aspect of Chinese history has been change, such as political reforms and revolutions, reconfigurations of social structures, ideological shifts, and so on. Still, in the midst of such dramatic transformations some still points stand out which are negative in the two undermentioned authors' opinions. Two recent dissertations have made significant contributions to our understanding of modern science in China—Zhang Jian's “Science Associations and Social Change in Modern China: A Study of the Science Society of China” and Sigrid Schmalzer's “The People's Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth-Century China,” now available in book form. By juxtaposing them, I hope to point out some differences as well as the similarity in their perspectives, all of which may suggest a number of trends in the field of science and technology studies. Zhang's book investigates the course of the Science Society of China from its genesis to its demise. But, more significantly, the book revealed the structural transformation of Chinese society, a phenomenon that affected scientific institutions, intellectual assumptions, social communities, and political situations. The history of East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (2010) 4:629–633 DOI 10.1007/s12280-010-9161-y Y.-L. Chen (*) Hu-Nan University of Science and Technology, School of Law, Tao-Yuan Road, Xiang-Tan, Hu-Nan 411201, China e-mail: chenyulin9966@163.com the Science Society of China—traced alongside other science societies—suggests a number of questions: How was Chinese science institutionalized? How did the organizational structure of the Science Society change over time? What sort of communication system did it develop, and what were the relations it had with other scientific societies? What role did it play in the broader dissemination of science? What was the changing social role of scientists, and how did the scientific community and its network develop? Zhang's discussions of these issues and others displayed the changing complexion of Chinese science and society. However, Zhang highlights intellectual changes and social structure at the expense of cultural analysis, examples of which are infrequent and rather desultory. He suggests that beneath the dynamic surface of modern Chinese science lay stagnation, heaviness, and all the old ills of tradition, visible in the research decisions of individuals as in the policies of national cultural organizations. He concludes a series of cultural comparisons between China and the West by insisting that both in terms of science and of the social situations, tradition continued to hamstring China during the period studied. Zhang attributes this stagnation to a form of cronyism peculiar to China, a stubborn belief even among the ostensibly modern and enlightened leaders of the Science Society that “fellow villagers” (laoxiang, in Chinese culture it refers to a form of cronyism that is based on the same descent or homeland) needed to be treated specially. When investigating the limitations and obstructions imposed on the scientists as they took on new professional roles and established a particular status, Zhang found a great intellectual inertia due in part to official ideology, a tendency to value virtue more than truth, an undue emphasis on pragmatism, and so on. By observing a scientific community and its networks, Zhang illustrated the obstinate influence of traditional Chinese worldly wisdom. For example, in that historical context the leaders of the Science Society of China would prefer to giving a post to someone of the same homeland, major or profession as his own, rather than to assigning the best candidate according to competence required. And also they would like to dominate the most part of strategic decision as operated in a patriarchal system while disregarding...