People`s Peking Man – Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth–Century China
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A01=Sigrid Schmalzer
ancestors
archaeology
Author_Sigrid Schmalzer
bigfoot
Category=PDX
Category=PSXE
china
communism
communist revolution
darwin
dinosaurs
discovery
dissemination
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
ethnic nationalism
evolution
fossils
history
human nature
identity
labor
mao
marxism
materialism
missing link
nonfiction
paleoanthropology
peking man
popular science
populism
socialism
superstition
tradition
yeren
zhoukoudian
Product details
- ISBN 9780226738604
- Weight: 550g
- Dimensions: 152 x 228mm
- Publication Date: 01 Oct 2008
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In the 1920s an international team of scientists and miners unearthed the richest evidence of human evolution the world had ever seen: Peking Man. After the communist revolution of 1949, Peking Man became a prominent figure in the movement to bring science to the people. In a new state with twin goals of crushing superstition and establishing a socialist society, the story of human evolution was the first lesson in Marxist philosophy offered to the masses. At the same time, even Mao's populist commitment to mass participation in science failed to account for the power of popular culture - represented most strikingly in legends about the Bigfoot-like Wild Man - to reshape ideas about human nature."The People's Peking Man" is a skilled social history of Chinese paleoanthropology and a compelling cultural - and at times comparative - history of assumptions and debates about what it means to be human. By focusing on issues that push against the boundaries of science and politics, "The People's Peking Man" offers an innovative approach to modern Chinese history and the history of science.
Sigrid Schmalzer is assistant professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
