3838
(books)
HongKongUniversityPress
hen Mao Zedong set out for
Beijing in March 1949, he
carried with him two ancient
texts: Annals of History (史记, c.
100 BCE)
and Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in
Government (资治通鉴, c.
1050 CE).
Never
short of...
More
3838
(books)
HongKongUniversityPress
hen Mao Zedong set out for
Beijing in March 1949, he
carried with him two ancient
texts: Annals of History (史记, c.
100 BCE)
and Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in
Government (资治通鉴, c.
1050 CE).
Never
short of words, the Chairman also carried two modern Chinese dictionaries, the
Ciyuan (辞源, Commercial Press 1915) and
the Cihai (辞海, Zhonghua Books 1936).
Mao’s choice of reading material is no
trifling matter for Christopher Reed, author
of Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print
Capitalism, 1876-1937.
Rather, it symbolizes the importance of the two modern
industrialized publishing firms and the
development of print capitalism, the origin
and culmination of which reveals one of
history’s most striking shifts.
In their efforts to spread the word of
God, 19th-century Christian missionaries
introduced modern printing technology
to China.
Though their efforts to spread
the gospel may have been limited, their
propagation of te
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