Health and Hygiene in Chinese East Asia

“[A] welcome addition to the historiography of medicine in East Asia. . . . The chapters of this volume, which critically explore in turn questions of the conceptual plasticity of Chinese medical terminologies, and the translational ambiguities surrounding the implementation of public health procedures, for example quarantine, address a broad academic readership including
medical anthropologists, historians of medicine, and cultural studies.” - Vivek Neelakantan, IIAS Newsletter

“The topics addressed in Health and Hygiene in Chinese East Asia will interest not only a specialized Sinological audience but also scholars working in science and technology studies (STS) and medical anthropology. . . . [A]n important contribution to ongoing debates about health, hygiene, and modernity in greater China during the long twentieth century.” - Stephen R. Halsey, History: Reviews of New Books

"The scholarship in it reflects a well-developed state of the field of the history of medicine and public health…. This volume is highly readable for students and scholars interested in the history of medicine and public health in East Asia." - Yaqin Li, Frontiers of History in China

“This collection of essays brings together in one volume cutting-edge scholarship on the history of hygiene and public health in East Asia, from the tenth century to the twenty-first. It willed be welcomed not only by researchers on the history of medicine but also by those interested in topics as diverse as imperialism, demography, diet, and gender studies.” - Carol Benedict, author of Bubonic Plague in Nineteenth-Century China

“This imaginatively conceived volume sets the agenda for an entirely new history of public health. Moving deftly between the local and the global, Health and Hygiene in Chinese East Asia demonstrates that public health is best understood as a series of relationships rather than as a closed project in nation- or empire-building. As the contributors to this fine book show, there was more than one ‘China’ and certainly more than one ‘public health.’” - Mark Harrison, University of Oxford

“[T]his book provides many solid case studies to examine the intersections between governments, culture and science. Anyone interested in the history of Chinese medicine, colonial medicine and public health in East Asia will find it helpful.”
- Wen-Ching Sung, China Review

“This book should be of interest to scholars who want to see a more cosmopolitan approach to the history of medicine. . . . This book departs from earlier scholarship on public health in East Asia in two important aspects. First is the shift in focus to geographical regions that are far from the center of state power, such as Manchuria and the Pearl River delta, as well as the focus on the countryside rather than urban centers. Second, studying the embedded local practices and traditions and their interactions with international and transnational influences allow the authors to break out of the narrative based on imperialism or nation-building as the shaper of public health.” - Yüan-ling Chao, Bulletin of the History of Medicine

“This timely and diverse volume brings together exemplary scholarship on the history of colonial medicine and public health in China and Taiwan from the late nineteenth century to the present. . . . [T]his invaluable volume commands not only the attention of East Asianists, but all scholars interested in the global circulations of scientific knowledge, medical technologies, and practices of governance.” - Leon Antonio Rocha, Journal of Asian Studies

“This volume skillfully highlights the importance of a holistic view of medicine and an understanding of the ‘web of biological relationships’ between humans and the environment in managing and understanding disease and health (271).” - Tina Phillips, Johnson Journal of Interdisciplinary History

“This volume, edited by Angela Ki Che Leung and Charlotte Furth, exemplifies the diverse social science approaches at work in the study of medical/health history. The book offers a fascinating investigation of the health and hygiene developments in twentieth-century Chinese East Asia, with insightful findings.” - Liping Bu, Social History of Medicine