Handbook of Cultural Institutions in China.

Shanghai: Chinese National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, 1936. First edition (an edition in Chinese was published at the same time). Octavo. 282, [2, index and blank], xxiii [Classified Index], [1] pp. Publisher's maroon cloth with gilt cover and spine lettering, original printed buff dust jacket (minor edge wear and a chip to head of jacket). Overall, a very pleasing copy.From the jacket blurb--"A pioneer work in the English language on the cultural standing of modern China, being a comprehensive survey of five hundred principal and foreign cultural institutions---associations, libraries, museums, observatories, research organizations, universities, university clleges, etc.----and giving full and detailed particulars of each institutions." One may presume that many of these did not survive Mao's Cultural Revolution. In 1936, the dominant party in China was the Kuomintang (KMT), also known as the Nationalist Party, and it was led by Chiang Kai-shek, The Chinese National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation was part of an international network of committees dedicated to fostering international intellectual collaboration, under the umbrella of the League of Nations' International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC). The period during which these committees were active, primarily between the two World Wars, was a time of significant intellectual and cultural ferment worldwide, with many countries seeking to modernize their educational systems and to foster international scholarly and cultural exchanges. In China, this era was marked by profound transformations, including efforts to modernize and reform its education system, a growing openness to Western ideas and technologies, and a complex interplay of traditional Chinese and modernist thoughts. This work was reprinted in Taiwan in 1967.