Science, technology and late imperial history

As illustrated in the work of Elman and his school, the demystification of science has opened new vistas in the history of late imperial China. I argue that the similarly demystified concept of technology, as it is has recently been elaborated in technology studies, offers equally exciting new opportunities. They include an enrichment of our understanding of late imperial governance, subjectivities and material culture, and new possibilities for organizing, relating and comparing within the history of China, as well as for cross-cultural comparison. The article proposes three organizing concepts, technological landscape, culture, and era/mode, as tools both for exploring late imperial China and for linking China into comparative or global history