Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Introductory orientations: the traditional Chinese iron industry in recent centuries; 3. The earliest use of iron in China; 4. The flourishing iron industry of the -3rd and -2nd centuries; 5. The Han state monopoly of the iron industry; 6. The arts of the smith from Late Han through Tang; 7. Technical evolution and economic revolution in the Song period; 8. Economic expansion in the Ming period; 9. Some Chinese contributions to modern siderurgical technology; 10. Epilogue.

Promotional Information

Traces the production and use of iron and steel in China from ca. 1000 BC.

About the Author

Donald B. Wagner is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Copenhagen.

Reviews

'… an exemplary collaboration, building our knowledge and testing received wisdom in a continuously creative way.' The Spokesman 102: Slump and War

'This is an unusually substantial work, decades in the making and written in a style that is accessible to the interested general reader as well as graduate students and academics.' SciTech Book News

'In summary, this volume is an outstanding contribution to historical metallurgy as well as to the history of Chinese science and technology, representing a quarter of a century's worth of scholarly research on a vast and vastly interesting, topic by a scholar who competently covers both the linguistic-historical and the technical aspects of the subject.' Journal of Archaeological Science

'In summary, what Wagner has achieved in this book is most impressive. It far surpasses Needham's monograph of 1958 in at least three aspects: first, in contrast to Needham's heavy dependence on ancient textual evidence, Wagner has benefited greatly from the substantial progress in archaeological and archaeo-metallurgical studies over the past forty years; second, instead of presenting a history totally devoted to technological developments, Wagner offers us a much more balanced and coherent narrative of Chinese ferrous metallurgy in its social and economic contexts; third, when dealing with ancient texts, Wagner takes a stronger critical stand, and his desire is more to seek out, rather than glorify, the facts. This book is most certainly a worthy addition to the Science and Civilisation in China series.' Jianjun Mei, Revue de Synthese

'[Wagner's] thoughtful presentation and reflections on how his own research developed throughout [the] 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 … The research in this book reflects the author's intimate knowledge of the technology and history of metallurgy.' Dagmar Schäfer, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science