Engineering Trouble.

• Superior document: China Studies ; v.52
• Author: Pelzer, Thorben.
• Place / Publishing House: Boston : : BRILL,, 2023.; ©2023.
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: China Studies
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (293 pages)

"In the early twentieth century, the first large batch of Chinese civil engineers had graduated from the USA, and together with their American senior colleagues returned to China. They were enthusiastic about reconstructing the young republic by building new railways, highways, and canals, but what the engineers experienced in China, including mismanaged railways, useless highways, and silted canals, did not always meet their expectations and ideals. In this book, Thorben Pelzer makes the stories of these Chinese and American engineers come to life through exploring previously unpublished letters, rare images, maps, and a rich biographical dataset. He argues that the experiences of these engineers include a myriad of contradictions, disillusionment, and discontent, keeping the engineering profession in a constant flux of searching for its meaning and its place in Republican China"-- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

Introduction : open roads in China -- Nationalism and the cosmopolitical : education overseas, 1905-1918 -- Financial constraint : the Grand Canal board, 1918-1922 -- Political dependency : Wang Jingchun at the Chinese Eastern Railway, 1919-1924 -- The visible college : the early association of Chinese & American engineers, 1919-1927 -- Cohesion and exclusion : The Relief Commission paves the provinces, 1926-1934 -- Demise without exhaustion : the withdrawal of US engineers, 1928-1941 -- Wartime engineering : Ling Hongxun under pressure, 1932-1945.