Infrastructural Globalization

Lighting the China Coast, 1860s–1930s

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8959532
AutoresRobert Bickers (0000-0002-3663-7658, autor de correspondencia)
Año2013
Volumen56
Número2
Páginas431-458
Fecha de publicación2013-05-03
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Historical Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0018246x13000010
OpenAlexW2006810539
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas49

This article calls for attention to be paid to the infrastructures that underpinned nineteenth-century globalization, and the use of better-known technological developments and global patterns of professional migration. It does so by outlining the work of the Marine Department of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service after 1868, focusing on its development of a network of lighthouses along the coast of China in its political and comparative contexts. These lights were at once local sites and nodes within a developing national and global system, and evolving practices around circulation of data and best practice, accepted international standards, technology transfer, and maritime safety. The Customs Service was a Chinese government agency, albeit within the British orbit of influence, but acted as a buffer between China and foreign interests and pressures

Agency (philosophy · Business · China · Circulation (fluid dynamics · Economics · Economy · Geography · Globalization · Government (linguistics · International trade · Political science · Politics · Service (business · Social science · Sociology · Work (physics · Chinese history and philosophy · Engineering · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law