Unearthing the Nation: Modern Geology and Nationalism in Republican China by Grace Yen Shen (review)

This is a subtle book. Its contribution lies almost as much in what it does not do as in what it does. Without fanfare or polemic, Grace Yen Shen breaks from the common assumption that studies of science in modern China must be studies of the movement of ideas from one place (specifically the West) to another (specifically China) and what happens to them once they get there. As she says, “The central concern of this work is not how science travels, but how it is refracted in a new medium, and how this process illuminates both the workings of science itself and the distinctive features of its novel surroundings” (6). In shifting the focus away from what Jim Secord has called “knowledge in transit” (though she does not explicitly reference Secord), Shen is able to produce a history of a community of scientists in one place, who built their knowledge and their craft in ways that are as significant as the operations of any other scientific community anywhere.

In part, Shen’s approach arises from her conviction that a study of the movement of ideas does not fit the subject of geology in the early twentieth century, since geologists everywhere at that time were in profound disagreement about some of the most fundamental issues of their field. As she says, “It would clearly be foolhardy to think of the development of modern geology in China in merely kinematic terms when the object in motion was so unstable” (7). With a nod to Naomi Oreskes, Shen argues that the very instability of the discipline of geology created opportunities for Chinese geologists, “enabling” them to explore diverse avenues of research—a flexibility that became increasingly imperative as decades of war and shifts in the political terrain continuously closed avenues that had been fruitful and opened others.

If the unstable state of the field of geology enabled Chinese geologists, it has also enabled Shen to produce a “China-centered” history of early twentieth-century Chinese geology. And this is clearly her goal. She by no means discounts the importance of international science. Rather, she invokes William Kirby’s often-quoted statement that in early twentieth-century China, “everything important had an international dimension” (73), and certainly science is one of the areas for which that dimension is most difficult to overlook. Still, the national context of the “truly Chinese geological community” (157) she charts is unquestionably of first importance in her study. She devotes considerable space in each of her chronologically arranged chapters to the basic political narrative of Chinese history that China scholars know by heart—and that we can only hope will be of interest to historians of science in other geographical contexts. Yet that space is not wasted; it is necessary to ensure that her story remains about the China that Chinese geologists knew and loved.

“Loved” is the appropriate word here. Shen has taken her cue not just from the “China-centered” scholarship on China but also from the more recent trend to take seriously emotive experience in history. She seeks to understand why Chinese people came to “covet” science, and geology in particular, in addition to their feelings of national shame and humiliation (the subject of a number of recent works in the China field) and their evolving love for “China” as they understood it. She pursues these themes through the experiences of specific people, a number of whose professional lives are rendered beautifully in her narrative. The geologists Weng Wenhao and Li Siguang stand out, but readers are also treated to many compelling vignettes in the lives of Zhou Shuren (a.k.a. Lu Xun), Ding Wenjiang, and others.

This serious inquiry into not just the words and deeds but the emotional experiences of Chinese geologists allows Shen to shed new light on the complex question of Chinese nationalism. Here again instability is not just a central theme but a crucial force. Shen...