Journal of Publishing and Criticism
JPC, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2026, pp.139-147
Print ISSN: 3107-0892; Online ISSN: 3107-0906
Journal homepage: https://www.jpcjournal.com
DOI: https://doi.org/10.64058/jpc260114kalip
Knowledge on the Assembly Line: Industrial Publishing and the Shaping of Modern Chinese Knowledge Culture
Chen Yiying
Abstract: This review essay examines Robert Culp’s The Power of Print in Modern China: Intellectuals and Industrial Publishing from the End of Empire to Maoist State Socialism and explores how the book contributes to the study of modern Chinese cultural and intellectual history by shifting attention from authors, works, and ideas to the industrial organization of publishing. Centering the concept of print industrialism, the essay shows how Culp reorients the history of knowledge toward editorial departments, labor organization, workflow rationalization, and the institutional production of textual forms. It highlights the book’s account of how editors emerged as a new intellectual stratum and how industrial publishing reshaped the making of textbooks, dictionaries, photolithographic reprints of ancient books, and book series. In doing so, the essay argues that publishing was not merely a vehicle for the dissemination of ideas but an infrastructure that organized knowledge, standardized language, structured readerships, and redefined the relationship between writing and management. The review further emphasizes the book’s contribution to debates on continuity and rupture across the 1949 divide by showing that the logic of industrial publishing persisted, in transformed form, under state socialism and within the framework of the pedagogical state. It also identifies several avenues for further inquiry, including regional comparison beyond Shanghai, fuller attention to reader reception, and a more sustained analysis of the material and technological conditions of print production. Finally, the essay underscores the book’s contemporary relevance by linking its analysis of project-based production, editorial coordination, and the discipline of performance metrics to the organizational logics of today’s content industries and academic publishing.
Keywords: Robert Culp; print industrialism; industrial publishing; modern Chinese knowledge culture; publishing history
Author Biography: Chen Yiying, Ph.D. candidate, at Faculty of English Language and Culture of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, and serves as an Editor at the Journal Center of Guangxi University. Research Interests: Literary and Cultural, Editing and Publishing. E-mail: yiyingchen@gxu.edu.cn.
标题：当知识进入流水线：工业化出版与现代中国知识文化的塑造
摘要：罗伯特·卡尔普的《出版的力量：清末至新中国初期的知识分子与工业化出版》（商务印书馆，2025年）将出版史的关注点从作者、作品和思想转向出版的工业组织，为现代中国文化史与思想史研究做出了重要贡献。该书以“印刷工业主义”为核心概念，将出版史重新导向编辑部门、劳动组织、工作流程理性化以及文本形式的制度化生产，并着重讨论了编辑作为新兴知识阶层的崛起，以及工业化出版如何重塑教科书、词典、古籍影印和丛书的制作过程。在卡尔普看来，出版不仅是传播思想的工具，更是一种组织知识、规范语言、构建读者群体并重新界定写作与管理关系的基础设施。同时，该书对1949年前后出版的断裂与延续的论争做出了重要推进，揭示了工业化出版的逻辑在国家社会主义和教育型国家的框架内以变体形式延续了下来。另外，该书亦为后续研究打开了若干值得探索的方向：如突破上海中心视域的区域比较、读者接受的系统性实证考察，以及印刷生产物质技术条件的深度历史化分析。最后，该书将项目制生产、编辑协调与绩效考核的规训机制与今天内容产业和学术出版的组织逻辑加以衔接，凸显了其对当代知识生产的镜鉴意义。
关键词：罗伯特·卡尔普；印刷工业主义；工业化出版；现代中国知识文化；出版史
作者简介：陈奕颖，广东外语外贸大学英语语言文化学院博士研究生，广西大学期刊中心编辑，研究方向：文学文化、编辑出版。电邮：yiyingchen@gxu.edu.cn。
Received: 16 Feb 2026 / Revised: 21 Apr 2026 / Accepted: 29 Apr 2026 / Published online: 30 Apr 2026 / Print published: 30 May 2026.
