Social Engineering and the Social Sciences in China, 1919–1949

by Yung-chen Chiang

• ISBN13: 9780521770149
• ISBN10: 0521770149
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-01-22
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In this book Yung-chen Chiang tells the story of the origins, hopes, visions and achievements of the social sciences movement in China during the first half of the twentieth century. He focuses on the efforts of social scientists at three institutions - the Yanjing Sociology Department, Nankai Institute of Economics, and Chen Hansheng's Marxist agrarian research enterprise - to relate their disciplines to the needs of Chinese society. As all three groups received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, their stories offer a unique window on to Sino-American interactions, revealing how the social sciences became a lingua franca of the cultural frontier. Drawing on an impressive variety of archival materials used here for the first time, this study corrects and enriches current scholarship, presenting both a more detailed and panoramic view. Chiang's analysis engages the complex and broader issues of the transfer, indigenization and international patronage of social science disciplines.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xii
Note on Names and Romanization	xiv
Introduction	1	(22)
The Yanjing Sociology Department: The Social Service Phase, 1919--1925	23	(23)
Princeton-in-Peking and Community Social Service	25	(6)
A Clash of Visions	31	(6)
The Inception of a Social Science Program	37	(3)
The Turn to Foundations	40	(6)
The Yanjing Sociology Department: From Social Service to Social Engineering, 1925--1945	46	(32)
The Consolidation of the Social Service Wing	47	(7)
The Rise of the Sociology Wing	54	(3)
Two Competing Paradigms	57	(6)
Entry of the Social Service Wing into the Field of Social Engineering	63	(8)
The Department during the War	71	(7)
The Nankai Institute of Economics: The Germinating Stage, 1927--1931	78	(25)
The Financial Base	79	(3)
The Foreign-Educated Faculty and the Administrators	82	(5)
Franklin Ho and the Origin of the Nankai Institute of Economics	87	(3)
The Entry of the Institute of Pacific Relations	90	(2)
Nankai under the Aegis of the Institute of Pacific Relations	92	(11)
The Nankai Institute of Economics: Academic Entrepreneurship and Social Engineering, 1931--1947	103	(33)
The Genesis of a Research Program	103	(4)
The Shift toward of a Rural Focus	107	(1)
Finance and Personnel to 1937	108	(5)
County Government and Finance in Hebei	113	(6)
Rural Industries in Hebei	119	(4)
Attempts at Social Engineering	123	(5)
Return to a Macroeconomic Focus	128	(8)
Marxism, Revolution, and the Study of Chinese Society	136	(23)
Qu Qiubai and Shanghai University	136	(12)
Mao Zedong and his Agrarian Surveys	148	(11)
Genesis of a Marxist Social Science Enterprise in the Early 1930s	159	(25)
Chen Hansheng and His Discovery of the Field	159	(5)
The Institutional Base	164	(3)
Diagnosis of the Agrarian Crisis through Research	167	(4)
Into the Field	171	(3)
A Conceptualization Crisis	174	(5)
Clandestine Activities	179	(5)
The Social Sciences, Agrarian China, and the Advocacy of Revolution	184	(38)
Sustaining the Enterprise on ad hoc Institutional Bases	184	(14)
Creation of an Alternative Institutional Base	198	(12)
Agrarian Research, Political Intelligence, and Transpacific Publicity Work for the Cause of Revolution	210	(12)
The Rockefeller Foundation and Chinese Academic Enterprise	222	(34)
Patronizing Social Science Research in China from New York	223	(6)
Competition for Research Funds	229	(7)
Factionalism and Academic Patricide	236	(6)
Philanthropies and Chinese Social Scientists	242	(14)
Conclusion: The Legacy	256	(14)
Social Engineering	258	(3)
A Transpacific Transplantation of a Paradigmatic Debate	261	(9)
Glossary	270	(7)
Bibliography	277	(16)
Index	293