Acknowledgments

his project analyzes changing patterns of collective cultural pro- duction in twentieth-century . Various forms of collabora- T tion, in turn, have made this possible. Over the past decade, I have had the good fortune to cooperate with Wen-hsin Yeh and Eddy U on four conferences and an edited . Our shared exploration of intel- lectuals and knowledge production in twentieth- century China shaped my approach and interpretations at every stage of this project. I thank them both for their challenging questions, perceptive suggestions, and generous support. In Shanghai I have enjoyed long-term friendships with scholars in the History Department at Fudan University and the History Institute at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Questions, comments, and research guidance during visits, lectures, and conference presentations at both insti- tutions greatly enriched this book, for which I am grateful. My special thanks go to Zhang Zhongmin and Zhou Wu for sharing their insights on cultural production and book history in modern China. I presented a preliminary exploration of this topic and two finished chapters from the book at Columbia University’s Modern China Semi- nar. Each time, thoughtful discussion impacted my understanding of the chapters at hand and the project as a whole. For the past fifteen years I have benefited from the collegiality of the seminar’s participants and its organizers—Eugenia Lean, Robbie Barnett, and Chuck Wooldridge. Given

[ ix ] those long-standing connections with Columbia, I am thrilled that this book is being published as one of the Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute. I am also grateful to the Warner Fund of the Columbia Univer- sity Seminars Series for providing extra support for publication of this book. The history of cultural production and history of the book in China have flourished in East Asia, Europe, and North America over the past two decades. It has been energizing to work on this project as this field has grown. The debt I owe to the many brilliant scholars now in this area will be apparent from the notes in the following chapters. As often happens, new sources have helped fuel the growth of that scholarship. My work was greatly enriched by the publication of diaries from some key fig- ures in China’s publishing industry, such as Zhang Yuanji, Shu Xincheng, Jiang Weiqiao, and Wang Boxiang, and access to diaries by Bao Tianxiao and Sun Yuxiu. I thank Sun Huei- min and Wang Youpeng for helping me work with some of that material. Online collections of and periodicals have made it possible to survey series publications and track books’ dissemination in new ways. Archival resources are revealing more and more of the internal workings of organizations like the publish- ers discussed here. I am grateful to the Shanghai Municipal Library, Shanghai Municipal Archive, Zhonghua Book Company, and the Lexico- graphical Publishing House Library for sharing their rich collections of late Qing, Republican, and early PRC materials. A brief stint as a consulting editor gave me some unexpected firsthand insights into the work life of a staff editor. This book’s arguments and interpretations have been shaped at every turn by the comments and suggestions of many generous readers and lis- teners. I thank Tom Mullaney and the anonymous reader from Columbia University Press for their smart questions and productive advice on the complete manuscript. Many colleagues have read or heard portions of this book, as conference papers, lectures, or finished chapters, and provided invaluable guidance. They include Cynthia Brokaw, Shana Brown, Janet Chen, Sherman Cochran, Nara Dillon, Michael Hill, Tze-ki Hon, Joan Judge, Rebecca Karl, Paize Keulemans, Eugenia Lean, Li Renyuan, Bar- bara Mittler, Rebecca Nedostup, Elizabeth Perry, Christopher Reed, Arey Ling Shiao, Eddy U, Nicolai Volland, Fei-hsien Wang, Timothy Weston, Wen-hsin Yeh, Peter Zarrow, and Zhang Qing. Chapters or sections of this project were presented in talks at Brown University, Harvard Univer- sity, Princeton University, the University of Alabama, Beijing Normal

[ x ] ACKNOWLEDGMENTS University, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and Sun Yat-sen University. I am grateful to the audiences at each of these institutions for their very helpful feedback. At Bard two faculty seminars generated valuable guidance for framing this topic for readers outside the China studies field. My special thanks go to Tabetha Ewing for our discussions of book history, to Omar Cheta for his guidance on business history questions, and to Li- hua Ying for all her support and timely advice on difficult translations. The interlibrary loan staff at Bard College’s Stevenson Library have tirelessly tracked down every obscure Chinese volume I have requested over many years. Thanks, too, to two generations of students in my seminar the Power of Print, whose perceptive questions and creative interpretations helped me to approach my own work in new ways. Finally, I thank the Weatherhead East Asian Institute’s Ross Yelsey for all his support going into the publication process. And I am grateful to Cae- lyn Cobb, Miriam Grossman, Monique Briones, Leslie Kriesel, Mike Ashby, and Anne Routon at Columbia University Press for their expert guidance through the review and editorial process. Funding for the research and writing of this book was provided by grants from the Bard Faculty Research Fund (2007–2008, 2009–2010, and 2014– 2015), the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend Pro- gram (FT- 56939-09), the Visiting Scholars Program of the International Center for the Study of Chinese Civilization at Fudan University, and a Scholar Grant (GS021-A- 13) from the Chiang Ching- kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. Without this generous support, this proj- ect would not have been possible. Portions of chapter 1 were previously published in “New Literati and the Reproduction of Antiquity: Contextualizing Luo Zhenyu and Wang Guowei,” in Lost Generation: Luo Zhenyu, Qing Loyalists and the Formation of Modern Chinese Culture, ed. Chia- ling Yang and Roderick Whitfield (Saffron, 2013). Parts of chapter 2 were included in “Mass Production of Knowledge and the Industrialization of Mental Labor: The Rise of the Petty Intellectual,” in Knowledge Acts in Modern China: Ideas, Institutions, and Identities, ed. Robert Culp, Eddy U, and Wen-hsin Yeh (Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2016). Sections of chapter 3 first appeared in “Teaching baihua: Publishing and the Production of Vernacular Language and a New Literary Canon in Early Twentieth-Century China,” Twentieth-Century China 34, no. 1

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS [ xi ] (November 2008): 4–41 (copyright © 2008 Twentieth Century China Journal, Inc.). I am grateful for permission to republish that material here. Additional portions of chapter 3 were drawn from “Chuangzhi : Zhonghua shuju yu Zhongguo xiandai yuyan yu sichao de chansheng” ⇃⇞˪彆㴟˫烉 ᷕ⋶Ḏ⯨ᶶᷕ⚥䍘ẋ宕妨ᶶ⿅㼖䘬ṏ䓇 (Making Cihai: Zhong- hua Book Company and the production of modern Chinese language and thought), in Zhonghua shuju yu Zhongguo jin xiandai wenhua ᷕ⋶Ḏ⯨ᶶᷕ⚥ 役䍘ẋ㔯⊾, ed. Fudan daxue lishixi et al. (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chu- banshe, 2013), and “Dingyi xiandaixing: Ciyuan yu xiandai Zhongguo yuhui de chuangzhi” ⭂佑䎦ẋ⿏烉˪录㸸˫冯䎦ẋᷕ⚳婆⼁䘬∝⇞ (Defining modernity: Ciyuan and the creation of the modern Chinese lexicon), in Jindai Zhongguo zhishi de jiangou 役ẋᷕ⚳䞍嬀䘬⺢㥳, ed. Peter Zarrow and Zhang Zhejia (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiu yuan, 2013). Some material from chapter 5 was included in “Wei putong duzhe qunti chuangzao ‘zhishi shi- jie’: Shangwu yinshuguan yu Zhongguo xueshu jingying de hezuo” ᷢ㘖 忂宣侭佌ỻ⇃忈‘䞍孮ᶾ䓴’—— ⓮≉⌘Ḏ椮ᶶᷕ⚥⬎㛗䱦劙䘬⎰ἄ (A world of knowledge for the Circle of Common Readers: Commercial Press’s part- nership with China’s academic elite), Shilin ⎚㜿, no. 3 (2014): 92– 108. In all my work I depend on the love, support, and good humor of my family. I dedicate this book to Katie, Autumn, and Lizzie, who have lived with these editors for a long time. It’s time we move on to a new cast of characters.

[ xii ] ACKNOWLEDGMENTS