BOOK REVIEW

Historical perspectives on Chinese metallurgy

Joseph Needham: science and civilisation in China, volume 5,chemistry and chemical technology, part 11: ferrous metallurgy,Donald B. Wagner (ed), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,2008, 544 pp, £120.00 HB

Dagmar Schafer

Published online: 14 April 2010

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

When Lord George Macartney (1737–1806) in the year 1799 in An authenticaccount of an embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of Chinareported back to his King on his trade mission to China, one of the issues he mocked

was that ‘‘the iron ore of the Chinese is not well managed in their smelting furnace;

and the metal is not so soft, malleable, or ductile as British iron. Their smith’s work

is exceedingly brittle, as well as clumsy, and not polished.’’1 A country far away in

East Asia may be able to produce good paper and beautiful porcelain. But when it

came to iron smelting, one of the driving forces behind the British economy of this

era, Macartney was unwilling to give credit to any other empire.2 Most late

eighteenth-century British descriptions on iron smelting outside their native place

were cultural caricatures in which observations reflected the ideals and expectations

of the viewer. For Thomas Bent the furnaces of The Ruined Cites of Mashonalandwere a curious thing with its shape ‘‘taken from the human form, for it is made to

represent a seated woman’’ (London: Longman 1892: 44). In the light of Victorian

ideas of evolution and technical progress, the Qing empire’s (1644–1912) ferrous

metal technology could only be crude and backward, and certainly less efficient than

that of the British empire. A fine, copiously illustrated, and erudite new volume of

the Needham project on the history of ferrous metals now allows us to place

Macartney’s technical evaluation into its wider historical context. More than

D. Schafer (&)

Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstraße 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany

e-mail: dschaefer@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

1 Sir Georg Staunton, Lord George Macartney (Earl), Sir Erasmus Gower, An authentic account of an

embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China: taken chiefly from the papers of His

Excellency the Earl of Macartney… Sir Erasmus Gower… and of other gentlemen in the several

departments of the embassy (Printed for R. Campbell by J. Bioren 1799), Vol. 1–2, 1:131.2 Charles K. Hyde, Technological Change and the British Iron Industry, 1700–1870 (Princeton:

Princeton University Press 1977); Thomas S. Ashton, Iron and Steel in the Industrial Revolution (Modern

Revivals in Economic and Social History) (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1951).

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Metascience (2010) 19:479–482

DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9395-2

40 years of intensive research on the history of Chinese metallurgy has made

Donald B. Wagner, the leading scholar in issues of iron smelting, wrought iron, or

steel technologies in the Chinese world. But with this study, Wagner, who was

involved in the Needham project from its launch to the present, has accomplished

much more than the depiction of this particular field of technological endeavour. His

thoughtful presentation and reflections on how his own research developed

throughout these decades in the wake of newly emerging evidence and the

changing intellectual discourse, makes this volume of the Needham series an

exceptional guidebook for research methods in the field of the history of technology

in general and ferrous metallurgy in particular. Furthermore, within the series of

Science and Civilization in China (SCC) up to now, this study is probably the one

that most explicitly sings a hymn to the technological side of the history of Chinese

knowledge making.

The research in this book reflects the author’s intimate knowledge of the

technology and history of metallurgy. In his hands, the artefacts, writings and

instruments become invaluable testimony to Chinese civilization, its formation, and

identity as well its inconsistencies and ruptures. At the same time Wagner

emphasizes at every step the difficulties and ambiguities of these testimonies. While

the author clearly follows the encyclopaedic paradigm of the series’ editors, the

reader is in no danger of being misled by the fallacies of historical evidence. Issues

such as the representativeness of artifactual evidence, or the ambiguities of textual

description and terminology, and their interpretive difficulties, are all clearly spelled

out. Wagner gives careful attention to Chinese scholarship, delineating facts and

facets that, despite all efforts to raise attention for science and technology in global

contexts, are hardly ever taken into consideration. This and the quite personal, true-

to-type descriptive style of the author make this SCC volume an insightful guide to a

research field that is entrenched in practical difficulties, such as the restricted access

to primary excavations, as much as it is still weighted down with the paradigmatic

ballast of a ‘‘China-first’’ discussion.

It is Wagner’s credit to have turned this into an opportunity rather than a burden.

Rendering homage to Joseph Needham’s initial concerns, he divides ferrous

metallurgy into 10 sections and begins, after a general introduction (1), part (2) with

the delineation of the technical conditions of China’s iron industries from the

eighteenth to the early twentieth century (ca. 74 pages). Wagner uses the reports by

local and foreign experts, administrators or travellers of this era, to introduce basic

structural features, and technical procedures of ferrous metallurgy, and to depict

regional diversity. Part (3) then delves into the deep time of the metallurgical trade

(22 pages). With part (4) Wagner then returns to a traditional chronological

arrangement (ca. 31 pages), highlighting in detail the iron industries of the

formational era of Chinese unified rule from the third and second century (65 pages)

(5) the era of the Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD) (78 pages) (6) the late Han to Tang

dynasty (third to ninth century) (28 pages) (7) the Song era (Northern Song 960–

1127, Southern Song 1127–1279) (47 pages), and (8) the Ming (1368–1644) (20

pages). The page range here illustrates the disparity in coverage, implying an

inverse relationship between the amount of historical evidence and required

exposition. While the state forms a common thread throughout parts 5–9, each

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section pays particular attention to a specific characteristic in the organization of

metallurgy, such as state monopolistic organization (5), the role of the smith (6) or

the implementation of new technologies in the Song era (7). A concluding chapter

then discusses the influence of Chinese metalworking technology on other cultures,

and the impact of Mao Zedong’s (1893–1976) Great Leap Forward (dayue jin 1958–

1961) on traditional technologies, singling out Chinese contributions to modern

siderurgical technology, such as iron casting or malleable cast iron procedures. The

book is accompanied by the usual SCC set of high quality editorial features, such as

a comprehensive bibliography, a sophisticated index (which makes the continuous

cross-referencing in the footnotes quite superfluous), and various useful maps,

tables, technical drawings and photos. An editorial feature Donald Wagner uses

particularly effectively is the setting apart of the original texts and their

interpretation. This allows him to discuss issues of terminology in great detail

throughout his work (16). The original texts also display the obscurities that give the

non-specialist a glimpse into the difficulties of text interpretation on the level of

technical details and socio-historical contextualization. Another long-awaited

novelty in this SCC volume is the introduction of Pinyin for transcriptions.

As a leading scholar in the field, Wagner has extensively published elsewhere

many of the topics covered here. It would be pointless to discuss all the arguments

Wagner revisits, refines, and reconsiders to accomplish the larger chronological

overview in keeping with the Needham series. Nevertheless, the following deserve

mention for their particular relevance to current methodological arguments: the

vulnerability of early metallurgical history or the importance of the state as the

central thread along which to understand the imperial periods; the great importance

the blast furnaces had in the emergence of large scale production of the Han and its

politics of an imperial monopoly; the significance of fuel resources, local conditions

and labour organization for technological developments or the lack thereof;

economic influences such as the decline of long-distance trade and thus the return of

smaller ironworks through the Tang or the huge impact the expansion of trade had

on ferrous metallurgy by the time of the Ming era. De-nuovo invention is thus

fruitfully dismantled as the revival of former methods, while issues such as the

effectiveness of small-scale workshops or large-scale industries, or of iron or

bronze swords (121) emerge as questions of market and state structures, intent and

purpose.

The most innovative contribution of this book to the Needham series is structural:

While many volumes are topically arranged, Wagner chose to arrange his theme in a

chronological order. In Wagner’s case, this means not only a profitable departure

from old classificatory frameworks, but also from cursory lip service to compre-

hensiveness. The chosen highlighting of dynastic eras thus effectively points to

periodical gaps of research in periods such as the period generally addressed as the

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (wudai shiguo 907–960) or the Mongolian Yuan

dynasty (1271–1368) era. Implicit is a call to intensify research. And yet, this

approach is not without its irritations, in particular as Wagner leaves such gaps

largely uncommented. How should we understand this chronological structure in

terms of the socio-historical dimension of ‘‘technology’’, or its treatment as a

universal feature? Another irritating factor emerges when taking into account that

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Wagner’s identifies the Northern and Southern Song states as a ‘‘China among

equals’’ (280). Does his highlighting of specific dynasties carry a hidden agenda

regarding the identification of ‘‘China’’ in the title of the series? Another ambiguous

move in my view is that Wagner, by singularizing technology, ignores science

entirely: he does not explain how ferrous metallurgy relates to science or scientific

knowledge, and he avoids any discussion of science as a conceptual issue. This

approach means Wagner departs from the series’ always quite problematic and

pragmatic approach to technology as ‘‘applied science’’. And yet, the lines seems to

be drawn too harshly when he leaves the important relations of ferrous metallurgy to

other fields of knowing, such as, alchemy, arts or medicine completely unnoticed.

And it may be this strong focus in Wagner’s volume that, as is usual with such

books, whets the appetite for more, in particular more about the socio-historical

context of ferrous metallurgy, its ritual-religious aspects, on inter-regional exchange

and cross-cultural contacts. While Wagner has tackled these issues in other

publications, their absence in this particular book hampers the audience’s

appreciation of the effect that ferrous metallurgy had on ‘‘civilization’’.

Wagner’s deliberate departure from a scholarship that presumes to know

everything (87/88) elucidates many of the reasons that make the historical study of

technology so difficult. It curiously also supports the illusion of an objectivity well

suited to the SCC editor’s initial idea of an encyclopaedic effort. Presumably this

ambiguity is inherent in the series itself and not subject to individual authors.

Overall Donald Wagner has produced a most valuable and reflective book on the

history and historiography of ferrous metallurgy in Chinese culture. Its depth of

analysis and detailed account place it alongside the standard reference works and

source books for those interested in the history of science and technology, Chinese

and Asian history. It is an excellent compendium that brings together a wealth of

material in a most convenient form.

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