China and Albert Einstein: The Reception of the Physicist and His Theory in China 1917-1979 , Danian Hu , Harvard U. Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005. $39.95 (257 pp.). ISBN 0-674-01538-X
Since the time of biochemist and historian Joseph Needham, many studies on science in East Asia have focused on the traditional science that preceded the introduction of Western science. But as scientific and technological contributions from East Asia become increasingly visible, more studies on modern science and technology will appear. Danian Hu’s China and Albert Einstein: The Reception of the Physicist and His Theory in China 1917–1979 was published while the world celebrated the centennial of relativity’s birth and world leaders paid increasingly serious attention to China as a rising global leader. The book makes an important and timely addition to the historical studies of modern science in East Asia. Hu, an assistant professor of history at the City College of New York, demonstrates an impressive familiarity with relevant primary sources, published and unpublished, and illuminates a richness of his subject.
Readers might find the book overly descriptive; in particular, the first chapter, on the introduction of Western science to China, which begins with the Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci arriving in the country during the Ming Dynasty, might seem too lengthy. Nevertheless, Hu attempts to make several thought-provoking arguments. In explaining China’s quick and unanimous reception of relativity theory in the years after 1917, he first stresses Japan’s influence through translations of writings on relativity theory in Japanese—most notably translations of Ishiwara Jun and through Chinese students who had studied physics in Japan. If Hu is correct, this revelation marks an important revision of the current thrust in Chinese history of science, which emphasizes Japan’s negative roles.
Second, Hu argues that the absence of the research and educational traditions of classical physics set the stage for China’s positive reception of relativity theory in the late 1910s through the 1930s. Yet, I find this argument less convincing than the first. Certainly, the absence of a tradition in classical physics almost logically entails the lack of opposition against relativity theory based on classical physical ideas. But the book does not historically demonstrate the specific roles that the absence allegedly played. The author could have achieved such a demonstration through a comparative study, which he does not.
I believe a fundamental problem of the book might be its formulation of its central goal: to explain China’s quick reception of relativity theory. Hu seems to assume that China passively received the same relativity theory as the one in Europe or in Japan. Today’s historians of science who are concerned with the dissemination of scientific ideas would find Hu’s approach unacceptable. The author fails to ask what consequences language, culture, institutional differences, or Japan’s influence had in the conceptualization and practices of relativity theory in China. This shortcoming is unfortunate because, considering the author’s familiarity with the subject, he easily could have theorized how the practices of relativity theory differed in China from those in the West.
One argument that I find potentially fascinating is that the revolutionary atmosphere engendered by the May Fourth Movement in Beijing in 1919 helped the reception and dissemination of relativity theory, which Chinese intellectuals in the late 1910s and early 1920s deemed as revolutionary. Unfortunately, Hu does not fully develop that intriguing theme. His argument does not go much further than pointing out superficial connections between the Zeitgeist and perceptions of relativity theory, and his closer biographical investigations of physicists do not substantiate the link between the politico–cultural environment and relativity theory.
The most interesting and successful part of the book is the discussion of relativity theory during China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). The chapter might give a sense of déjà vu to readers familiar with the works of Loren Graham, Mark Walker, and others on science in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Compared with those earlier studies on science and ideology, the picture that Hu’s book presents appears to be somewhat simplistic, one in which political pressures distort truthful science while honest and heroic scientists fight against corrupt politicians. In addition, I cannot help but wonder whether China’s nuclear program had any relevance in the vindication of relativity theory—a question Hu does not explicitly consider. Nonetheless, the author shows that the study of Chinese science during the Cultural Revolution might lead to an important reexamination of the relation among science, ideology, and politics throughout the world.
Overall, the analytical framework of Hu’s book is problematic. Thus the author sometimes gives unsatisfactory analyses of rich and fascinating materials and fails to ask potentially important questions. His strength seems to lie in his studious accounts of complex stories. Despite its shortcomings, his meticulously documented study is an important step forward in understanding some aspects of the history of science in 20th-century China. He successfully narrates stories with a minimum of equations, making China and Albert Einstein accessible to a wide audience.
