Burke, Timothy

English

Works

Swarthmore College Works History Faculty Works History 1998 Review Of "Meeting Technology's Advance: Social Change In China And Zimbabwe In The Railway Age" By J. Z. Gao Timothy Burke Swarthmore College, tburke1@swarthmore.edu This work is brought to you for free and open access by . It has been accepted for inclusion in History Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu. Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-history  Part of the History Commons Let us know how access to these works benefits you  Recommended Citation Timothy Burke. (1998). "Review Of "Meeting Technology's Advance: Social Change In China And Zimbabwe In The Railway Age" By J. Z. Gao". International Journal Of African Historical Studies. Volume 31, Issue 2. 379-380. DOI: 10.2307/221100 https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-history/13   ReviewReviewed Work(s): Meeting Technology's Advance: Social Change in China and Zimbabwe inthe Railway Age by James Zheng GaoReview by: Timothy BurkeSource: The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 31, No. 2 (1998), pp.379-380Published by: Boston University African Studies CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/221100Accessed: 27-09-2017 18:06 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a widerange of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity andfacilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available athttp://about.jstor.org/termsBoston University African Studies Center is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserveand extend access to The International Journal of African Historical StudiesThis content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Wed, 27 Sep 2017 18:06:20 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms BOOK REVIEWS 379 Throughout the encyclopedia, archaeology and prehistory provide the main story-lines, so to speak, but careful attention has been paid to issues that are less central but without which the story would be incomplete, including the politics of archaeology, critical changes in historiography, and controversies in interpreta- tion. With so many contributors and separate chapters, it is expected that there will be some unevenness of quality, style, depth, and bibliography-these are reasons why few want to take on the task of producing such volumes. But this product was well worth the effort. The logical organization of the entries, and thorough but clear substance of the volume, tempts one to suggest that, with some further editing and reformatting, it could be turned into a new text on African archaeology. The size and expense would preclude using it as such at this time, but it could well be the basis of an even more widely useful book. Even as it stands, the book would be a solid resource to use as reserve reading in an African archaeology course, to back up and update existing texts and readers. Other obvi- ous uses include as a reference for archaeologists who need a reliable synthesis of topics outside their own expertise, as a review of early African history for histori- ans of later periods, and as a survey of the field for the educated, general reader. Congratulations to the editor for taking on a project of this scope. ADRIA LAVIOLETTE University of Virginia MEETING TECHNOLOGY'S ADVANCE: SOCIAL CHANGE IN CHINA AND ZIMBABWE IN THE RAILWAY AGE. By James Zheng Gao. Contributions in Comparative Colonial Studies 34. Westport, Conn.: Green- wood Press, 1997. Pp. xiv, 218. $65.00. A precisely focused comparative study of the role of railway technology in the advance of British imperialism in two divergent areas of the world, James Zheng Gao's book provides a convincing picture of how pre-existing social and economic conditions shaped imperial rail-building projects in distinctive ways in China and Zimbabwe. This monograph adds important texture and detail to current discussion of the general relationship between technology and imperial- ism. For Africanist readers, this book also casts some new light on the particular- ity of the southern African experience in comparison with other imperial territo- ries. Gao's study tracks the interplay of railroad technology and imperialism in the two regions from the late nineteenth century to the early 1930s. Comparative colonial history is often an empirically rich subgenre of world history, and Gao's work demonstrates some of its strengths. Gao argues that the contrast between China, with its large, complex internal transport system of considerable antiquity, and the Zimbabwean plateau, with its relatively limited system of transport using human carriers and oxen, played a key role in shaping the introduction of railwaysThis content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Wed, 27 Sep 2017 18:06:20 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 380 BOOK REVIEWS into the two societies. Gao also takes careful note of the major differences between indirect imperial influence over Chinese affairs and the direct colonial conquest of Zimbabwe, which meant that Chinese elites were able to shape the growth of rail technology in a manner denied to subjugated African rulers. In addition, this book deals with the considerably divergent impact that imperial rail- roads had on labor migrancy and commodity markets within each territory. A great deal of control and care is evident throughout this manuscript, and Gao often rises to the difficult challenge involved in mastering multiple bodies of scholarly literature. However, Gao's treatment is sometimes so controlled that it verges on being diagrammatic. Details abound, but they sometimes are not directly relevant to the key issues. As with many monographs that adapt material from a dissertation, this study is perhaps too dutiful in its attention to the widest range of possible back- ground material. Gao also follows an overly straightforward chronological and topical sche- matic that constrains the possible insights and analysis covered by the book. For one, the book's narrative ends sooner than it ought: the 1930s and 1940s were crucial times for the evolution of rail transport in both countries, and are highly relevant to the comparison that Gao is pursuing. Similarly, Gao does not pause to examine the more subtle, pervasive, and less easily narrativized effects that the coming of the railways had on the cultural imagination and general social practice of both societies. By sticking to the most obvious structural effects of rail trans- port on labor, trade, and imperial power, Gao misses a whole secondary layer of issues. Gao also is more or less content to echo the general argument about railroads and imperialism found in the work of Ronald Robinson, Daniel Headrick, and others, namely, that railways largely constituted a form of colonial underdevel- opment that extended imperial power at the expense of colonial subjects, in con- trast to the positive and central role of railroads in the industrialization of the United States and Western Europe. Gao supplements this argument by suggesting that a modest degree of economic growth or positive social change was also due to railway construction in both China and Zimbabwe. However, Gao does not particularly reflect on the place of technology within larger debates about the causes of imperial expansion, and he largely accepts without question the conten- tion that railways and other technological improvements caused economic devel- opment in the West. A stronger theoretical framing of this monograph in terms of these sorts of debates would have enhanced its usefulness and potential life span. TIMOTHY BURKE Swarthmore CollegeThis content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Wed, 27 Sep 2017 18:06:20 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Review Of  Meeting Technology\u27s Advance: Social Change In China And Zimbabwe In The Railway Age  By J. Z. Gao

Swarthmore College 
Works 
History Faculty Works History 
1998 
Review Of "Meeting Technology's Advance: Social Change In 
China And Zimbabwe In The Railway Age" By J. Z. Gao 
Timothy Burke 
Swarthmore College, tburke1@swarthmore.edu 
Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-history 
 Part of the History Commons 
Let us know how access to these works benefits you 
 
Recommended Citation 
Timothy Burke. (1998). "Review Of "Meeting Technology's Advance: Social Change In China And 
Zimbabwe In The Railway Age" By J. Z. Gao". International Journal Of African Historical Studies. Volume 
31, Issue 2. 379-380. DOI: 10.2307/221100 
https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-history/13 
This work is brought to you for free by Swarthmore College Libraries' Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in 
History Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact 
myworks@swarthmore.edu. 
 
 
Review
Reviewed Work(s): Meeting Technology's Advance: Social Change in China and Zimbabwe in
the Railway Age by James Zheng Gao
Review by: Timothy Burke
Source: The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 31, No. 2 (1998), pp.
379-380
Published by: Boston University African Studies Center
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/221100
Accessed: 27-09-2017 18:06 UTC
 
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
 
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
Boston University African Studies Center is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve
and extend access to The International Journal of African Historical Studies
This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Wed, 27 Sep 2017 18:06:20 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 BOOK REVIEWS 379
 Throughout the encyclopedia, archaeology and prehistory provide the main
 story-lines, so to speak, but careful attention has been paid to issues that are less
 central but without which the story would be incomplete, including the politics of
 archaeology, critical changes in historiography, and controversies in interpreta-
 tion. With so many contributors and separate chapters, it is expected that there
 will be some unevenness of quality, style, depth, and bibliography-these are
 reasons why few want to take on the task of producing such volumes. But this
 product was well worth the effort. The logical organization of the entries, and
 thorough but clear substance of the volume, tempts one to suggest that, with some
 further editing and reformatting, it could be turned into a new text on African
 archaeology. The size and expense would preclude using it as such at this time,
 but it could well be the basis of an even more widely useful book. Even as it
 stands, the book would be a solid resource to use as reserve reading in an African
 archaeology course, to back up and update existing texts and readers. Other obvi-
 ous uses include as a reference for archaeologists who need a reliable synthesis of
 topics outside their own expertise, as a review of early African history for histori-
 ans of later periods, and as a survey of the field for the educated, general reader.
 Congratulations to the editor for taking on a project of this scope.
 ADRIA LAVIOLETTE
 University of Virginia
 MEETING TECHNOLOGY'S ADVANCE: SOCIAL CHANGE IN CHINA
 AND ZIMBABWE IN THE RAILWAY AGE. By James Zheng Gao.
 Contributions in Comparative Colonial Studies 34. Westport, Conn.: Green-
 wood Press, 1997. Pp. xiv, 218. $65.00.
 A precisely focused comparative study of the role of railway technology in the
 advance of British imperialism in two divergent areas of the world, James Zheng
 Gao's book provides a convincing picture of how pre-existing social and
 economic conditions shaped imperial rail-building projects in distinctive ways in
 China and Zimbabwe. This monograph adds important texture and detail to
 current discussion of the general relationship between technology and imperial-
 ism. For Africanist readers, this book also casts some new light on the particular-
 ity of the southern African experience in comparison with other imperial territo-
 ries.
 Gao's study tracks the interplay of railroad technology and imperialism in the
 two regions from the late nineteenth century to the early 1930s. Comparative
 colonial history is often an empirically rich subgenre of world history, and Gao's
 work demonstrates some of its strengths. Gao argues that the contrast between
 China, with its large, complex internal transport system of considerable antiquity,
 and the Zimbabwean plateau, with its relatively limited system of transport using
 human carriers and oxen, played a key role in shaping the introduction of railways
This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Wed, 27 Sep 2017 18:06:20 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 380 BOOK REVIEWS
 into the two societies. Gao also takes careful note of the major differences
 between indirect imperial influence over Chinese affairs and the direct colonial
 conquest of Zimbabwe, which meant that Chinese elites were able to shape the
 growth of rail technology in a manner denied to subjugated African rulers. In
 addition, this book deals with the considerably divergent impact that imperial rail-
 roads had on labor migrancy and commodity markets within each territory. A
 great deal of control and care is evident throughout this manuscript, and Gao often
 rises to the difficult challenge involved in mastering multiple bodies of scholarly
 literature.
 However, Gao's treatment is sometimes so controlled that it verges on being
 diagrammatic. Details abound, but they sometimes are not directly relevant to the
 key issues. As with many monographs that adapt material from a dissertation, this
 study is perhaps too dutiful in its attention to the widest range of possible back-
 ground material.
 Gao also follows an overly straightforward chronological and topical sche-
 matic that constrains the possible insights and analysis covered by the book. For
 one, the book's narrative ends sooner than it ought: the 1930s and 1940s were
 crucial times for the evolution of rail transport in both countries, and are highly
 relevant to the comparison that Gao is pursuing. Similarly, Gao does not pause to
 examine the more subtle, pervasive, and less easily narrativized effects that the
 coming of the railways had on the cultural imagination and general social practice
 of both societies. By sticking to the most obvious structural effects of rail trans-
 port on labor, trade, and imperial power, Gao misses a whole secondary layer of
 issues.
 Gao also is more or less content to echo the general argument about railroads
 and imperialism found in the work of Ronald Robinson, Daniel Headrick, and
 others, namely, that railways largely constituted a form of colonial underdevel-
 opment that extended imperial power at the expense of colonial subjects, in con-
 trast to the positive and central role of railroads in the industrialization of the
 United States and Western Europe. Gao supplements this argument by suggesting
 that a modest degree of economic growth or positive social change was also due
 to railway construction in both China and Zimbabwe. However, Gao does not
 particularly reflect on the place of technology within larger debates about the
 causes of imperial expansion, and he largely accepts without question the conten-
 tion that railways and other technological improvements caused economic devel-
 opment in the West. A stronger theoretical framing of this monograph in terms of
 these sorts of debates would have enhanced its usefulness and potential life span.
 TIMOTHY BURKE
 Swarthmore College
This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Wed, 27 Sep 2017 18:06:20 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms


https://works.swarthmore.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=fac-history

Review Of Meeting Technology\u27s Advance: Social Change In China And Zimbabwe In The Railway Age By J. Z. Gao

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Works

Works