In this first comprehensive analysis of biological science in modern China, Laurence Schneider traces its troubled development from the 1920s, across the 1949 boundary, and into contemporary post-socialist China. Schneider uses his detailed portrayals of influential scientists and key education and research institutions to explore both internal and external forces at work in scientific development. The author examines the largely U.S. sources of its technical development and the subsequent quality of its research and educational accomplishments. At the same time, he firmly grounds these in the context of China's national, economic, and social revolutions. These upheavals have been the source of periodic obsessions to use science to regulate nature, to manage foreign influence on science, and to control scientists. The author argues that populist 'mass science' was Mao's solution to problems of control, especially in the 1950s, when Soviet Lysenkoism was granted the power in China to monopolize biology and ban genetics. This book provides the only detailed study of Lysenkoism in China, linking its ascendance to the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. It concludes with an analysis of the phoenix-like rise of genetics in recent decades and the assignment of biotechnology to a leading role in plans for economic development. Based on a broad range of archival materials and interviews with major actors in the story, this book will be a rich resource for all those interested in contemporary China.

Part 1 Introduction: Controlling Nature, Science, and Scientists Part 2 Part I: The Republican Era, 1911-1949 Chapter 3 Prologue: Independence through Dependence Chapter 4 Chapter 1: Biology at National Central, the Model University Chapter 5 Chapter 2: Genetics at Yanjing and Nanjing Universities Chapter 6 Chapter 3: War, Revolution, and Science Part 7 Part II: Mao's China, 1949-1976 Chapter 8 Chapter 4: Learning from the Soviet Union: Lysenkoism and the Suppression of Genetics Chapter 9 Chapter 5: Lysenkoism as Official Party Doctrine Chapter 10 Chapter 6: The Double Hundred Policy and the Restoration of Genetics Chapter 11 Chapter 7: One Step Forward, Two Back: Genetics from the Double Hundred through the Cultural Revolution Part 12 Part III: Deng's China, 1976-2000 Chapter 13 Chapter 8: Science Reforms and the Recovery of Genetics Chapter 14 Chapter 9: Biotechnology Becomes a Developmental Priority Chapter 15 Conclusion: Biology-with Chinese Characteristics