In this path-breaking book, Tong Lam examines the emergence of the "culture of fact" in modern China, showing how elites and intellectuals sought to transform the dynastic empire into a nation-state, thereby ensuring its survival. Lam argues that an epistemological break away from traditional modes of understanding the observable world began around the turn of the twentieth century. Tracing the Neo-Confucian school of evidentiary research and the modern departure from it, Lam shows how, through the rise of the social survey, "the fact" became a basic conceptual medium and source of truth. In focusing on China’s social survey movement, A Passion for Facts analyzes how information generated by a range of research practices—census, sociological investigation, and ethnography—was mobilized by competing political factions to imagine, manage, and remake the nation.

“This fascinating book is a fundamental contribution to the global history of social science. Tong Lam demonstrates how Chinese reformers struggled to build a modern society on a foundation of facts and statistics. Their ambitions were no mere dream, but were made real in a prodigious social survey movement which aimed as much to enlighten peasants as to inform administrators.” —Theodore Porter, author of Trust in Numbers “Lam’s approach is highly original. A Passion for Facts presents an impressive host of new material from Chinese and American archives that challenges interpretations of China and Chinese exceptionalism or independent development. Lam makes a compelling argument that the techniques developed in the early twentieth century and refined over several decades have been critical to state-building in China.” —James L. Hevia, author of English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth Century China “Lam supersedes the current ‘China-centered approach’ and the earlier framework that explained ‘modern China’ in light of global colonialism. He illuminates how the search for ‘facts’ empowered modern Chinese to reimagine their social and political realities in a global colonial context.” —Benjamin A. Elman, Chair, East Asian Studies Department, Princeton University

A collection of sixty classic and contemporary essays, stories, lists, poems, quotations, and cartoons that celebrates the joys of reading, the feeling of spending hours browsing through a bookstore, and the people for whom buying books is a necessity. Booklovers will find themselves in good company within the pages of A Passion for Books, beginning with science-fiction great Ray Bradbury's foreword and throughout contributions like-- Umberto Eco's How to Justify a Private Library, dealing with the question everyone with a sizable library is inevitably asked: "Have you read all these books?"; Gustave Flaubert's Bibliomania, the tale of a book collector so obsessed with owning a book that he is willing to kill to possess it; and Anna Quindlen's How Reading Changed My Life, in which she shares her optimistic view on the role of reading and the future of books in the computer age. Interspersed throughout are entertaining lists--Ten Bestselling Books Rejected by Publishers Twenty Times or More, Norman Mailer's Ten Favorite American Novels and many more-- plus select writings on bookstores, book clubs, cartoons about books and a specially prepared "bibliobibliography" of books about books. Whether you consider yourself a bibliomaniac or just someone who enjoys reading, A Passion for Books will provide you with a lifetime's worth of entertaining, informative, and pleasurable reading on your favorite subject--the love of books.

An honest look at some of the most controversial and earth-shaking American events of the last half-century, includes the Kennedy assassination and President Clinton's impeachment, as seen through the eyes of a veteran senator. Reprint. 15,000 first pirnting.

John Charles Främont was the illegitimate child of a Virginia aristocrat and a working-class French immigrant; Jessie Benton was the daughter of the most powerful pre-Civil War U.S. senator, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, and, her gender notwithstanding, had been groomed as much as any young man to be president. Senator Benton unwittingly brought the two together, never imagining that his daughter would fall in love with Främont. Despite their disparate backgrounds, however, John and Jessie?s marriage was one of the most storied events of the nineteenth century. And indeed, Jessie and John made a formidable couple. Both together and apart they contributed significantly to shaping the United States. He was a key figure in western expansion and the first presidential candidate for the Republican Party. She was a savvy political operator who played confidante and adviser to the highest political powers in the country. Despite their great efforts on behalf of their country, however, their reputations did not survive a Washington smear campaign led by none other than Jessie?s father. Written with an investigative journalist?s eye for detail and a novelist?s flair, this biography of explorer, politician, and gold-mine owner John C. Främont and his intellectual wife, Jessie Benton Främont, also casts light on the tumultuous period that forms the backdrop for their lives, from the abolition of slavery to the building of the railroad.

This feminist classic explores the many manifestations of friendship between women and examines the ways women have created their own communities and destinies through friendship.