Engineering Trouble: US–Chinese Experiences of Professional Discontent, 1905–1945

In the early twentieth century, the first large batch of Chinese civil engineers had graduated from the USA, and together with their American senior colleagues returned to China. They were enthusiastic about reconstructing the young republic by building new railways, highways, and canals, but what the engineers experienced in China, including mismanaged railways, useless highways, and silted canals, did not always meet their expectations and ideals. In this book, Thorben Pelzer makes the stories of these Chinese and American engineers come to life through exploring previously unpublished letters, rare images, maps, and a rich biographical dataset. He argues that the experiences of these engineers include a myriad of contradictions, disillusionment, and discontent, keeping the engineering profession in a constant flux of searching for its meaning and its place in Republican China.

Thorben Pelzer, Dr. (2022), Leipzig University, is a postdoc researcher in Chinese history at that university. He has published monographs, essays, and datasets on China, including 100 Karten über China (Katapult, 2022) and Einstieg in die Chinastudien (De Gruyter, 2019).