Knowledge and Text Production in an Age of Print: China, 900–1400

The essays in this conference volume analyze various ways in which knowledge was transmitted, transformed, and even effaced after print became a popular tool for transmitting knowledge in China. The editors have divided the essays into four parts. In part 1, “Change,” Ronald Egan discusses changing perceptions of books and learning in the Song dynasty, and Joseph McDermott describes book collecting and its goals in Jiangxi. Part 2 deals with “Quantification,” and has chapters by Joseph Dennis on local gazetteers, by Shih-shan Susan Huang on early Buddhist illustrated prints from Hangzhou, and by Lucille Chia on the uses of print in early Quanzhen Daoism (and hence, refreshingly, on printing in northern China). Part 3, “Choice,” contains a chapter by TJ Hinrichs on governmental medical texts, and one by Hilde De Weerdt on various possible readings of a Song historical atlas. In the fourth and last part, “Control,” Charles Hartman documents...