发表于2024-12-22
The People's Peking Man 2024 pdf epub mobi 电子书
图书标签: 科学史 海外中国研究 历史 社会史 PRC 舒喜乐 中国政治 英文原版
Peking Man”, discovered in the 1920s by an international team of scientists and miners, was deemed powerful evidence of human evolution. After the communist revolution of 1949, Peking Man also became Exhibit A in the movement to bring science to the masses. Even Mao's populist commitment to mass participation in science, however, could not erase the capacity of popular culture - represented most strikingly in legends about the Bigfoot-like Wild Man - to reshape ideas about human nature.
In this elegant and persuasive account of paleo-anthropologic development in China, Sigrid Schmalzer rewrites our understanding of the relationship between Chinese social, scientific and political cultures. She shows the ways that the emergence of the modern Chinese state rested on both scientific developments in the area of paleo-anthropology, and the ways that they were deployed to combat long-standing popular superstitions in service of new political realities. Her book successfully places Darwinian concepts in the context of popular political history and the developing Chinese nation-state, and thereby makes a valuable contribution to the knowledge and development of the human sciences in China and beyond.
很有趣的角度,做term paper扫了四章,有时间会重读
评分再好的选题和材料也经不住这么写……
评分其实舒喜乐醉翁之意不在“北京人”和“野人”,而在于“科普”:既然民众是智慧源泉,又如何被贴上迷信落后的标签,以至于需要补科学的课?全书看下来,足见恩格斯《劳动在从猿到人转变过程中的作用》在社会主义中国的深远影响。反讽的是当人文、人道、人性、人权等等在人文学科领域被禁止谈论时,科学界却在忙着用恩格斯的“劳动创造了人”来定义、建构人的身份。北京人和民族主义情绪、认祖归宗情结的共谋;寻找、再现野人是用科学的方法来阐释神秘事物的一种努力(杜赞奇有一篇谈民国时期破除迷信运动的论文,尤为深刻,可参考)。值得深思的是当下所谓的“民科”和科学普及的关系、人类和兽类之间的边界和逾越(中西不同语境)。
评分书是好书,但是未免太过于冗长啰嗦了,看到后面几章有点乏味。虽然题是北京人,但关注的是科学传播和意识形态的勾连,北京人仅仅只是其中一部分。野心足够,也因为如此闲笔太多。此外由于一些众所周知的原因,整本书没有使用很多重要档案,只能过多地倚重出版物和人物访谈,导致叙述无法触及科学传播的上层和底层,实属无奈之举。
评分一部Paleoanthropology在现代中国的历史。这一看似偏僻的学科在中国现代史中的重要地位,来自国族构造中树立祖先,以及共产主义的阶级革命之“劳动创造人”论述的政治需要。除了讨论这一学科知识的政治性,作者还讨论了共产主义体制下(四十年代至七十年代末)“科学普及”到“群众路线科学”诸运动中国家、科学家、群众诸角色的互动角力。本书另外一个有趣的线索是关于“野人”,这一位于科学/迷信/伪科学边界的形象,在不同时期都承载了这几个领域的边界在政治经济境况下滑动挪移的张力。
The People's Peking Man 2024 pdf epub mobi 电子书