{"product_id":"a-passion-for-facts-9780520950351","title":"A Passion for Facts","description":"In this path-breaking book, Tong Lam examines the emergence of the \"culture of fact\" in modern China, showing how elites and intellectuals sought to transform the dynastic empire into a nation-state, thereby ensuring its survival. Lam argues that an epistemological break away from traditional modes of understanding the observable world began around the turn of the twentieth century. Tracing the Neo-Confucian school of evidentiary research and the modern departure from it, Lam shows how, through the rise of the social survey, \"the fact\" became a basic conceptual medium and source of truth. In focusing on China’s social survey movement, \u003ci\u003eA Passion for Facts\u003c\/i\u003e analyzes how information generated by a range of research practices—census, sociological investigation, and ethnography—was mobilized by competing political factions to imagine, manage, and remake the nation.","brand":"Tong Lam","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48200479047931,"sku":"9780520950351","price":85.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0779\/3917\/9771\/files\/9780520950351.jpg?v=1772481943","url":"https:\/\/indiepubs.com\/products\/a-passion-for-facts-9780520950351","provider":"IndiePubs","version":"1.0","type":"link"}