The Sounds of Mandarin

Kenneth Pomeranz, author of The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy:
For years, scholars mostly assumed that we knew the roughly parallel stories of ‘linguistic unification,’ both on the Chinese mainland and in Taiwan: a slow but inexorable triumph of standardization pushed by strong states armed with new technologies. Janet Y. Chen’s exciting book shows us something radically different: stop-start cycles of intense campaigns; powerful, multivalent resistance; changing, politically fraught standards; and divergent outcomes.

Eugenia Lean, author of Vernacular Industrialism in China: Local Innovation and Translated Technologies in the Making of a Cosmetics Empire, 1900-1940:
In prose that is as clear as it is elegant, Chen’s book introduces the myriad actors—reformists, linguists, educators, and state officials—who negotiated the social stakes, political implications, and pedagogical processes of making the Chinese nation speak, utter, sing, and chant in unity. This is a wonderful read by a masterful historian.

Gail Hershatter, University of California, Santa Cruz:
This absorbing narrative traces efforts to establish a common spoken language across China’s national expanse. Ingenious reformers, determined state authorities, and beleaguered teachers were no match for China’s cacophonous soundscape. Placing spoken language at the heart of historical explanation, The Sounds of Mandarin is by turns hilarious and sobering.

Robert Culp, author of The Power of Print in Modern China: Intellectuals and Industrial Publishing from the End of Empire to Maoist State Socialism:
The Sounds of Mandarin is the definitive study of the modern Chinese quest for a unified spoken language. Janet Y. Chen transports readers into the meeting rooms where linguistic models were debated and the classrooms, movie theaters, and military units where the national language was taught. She captures the elusiveness of crafting a single national standard and the challenge of making it a living language.