Reviews

The Chinese Typewriter: A History by Thomas S. Mullaney

momey's review against another edition

5.0

this was eye opening. a fascinating read

sav_pls's review

challenging informative slow-paced

4.0

Very interesting! Definitely goes into a lot of detail that was at some points hard for me to get through, but I found the broad strokes of the invention and reception of the Chinese Typewriter very interesting.

porges's review

4.0

This is great, really snappy (sorry but that's what came to mind) for such academic writing. I can only lament that the sequel is not yet published!

gannent's review

informative medium-paced

4.75

Really fascinating, interesting and engaging read. Very well-written, especially for an academic book which are often dry and difficult to understand, the author provides you with lots of information but uses fun and interesting examples and accessible language. I learned a lot!

bazeblackwood's review against another edition

4.0

This book is a fascinating exploration into the (parallel) invention of the Chinese typewriter, a challenge with a massive scope that yielded little success, yet still majorly influenced the way device input works today.

omnibozo22's review against another edition

5.0

Forty years ago I asked my Chinese history professor how the telegraph system worked in GMD era China. He didn't really know, despite being an expert in that era. I asked if they just used a limited vocabulary with a number for each word. He suspected that was the case, but didn't have a reference for it. This book provides the answer, which is deeply imbedded in the development of both technological and linguistic methods of transmitting the written Chinese language onto paper/screens.
Another question I had asked was about Lin Yutang. I had read one of his books, but had no feeling for why he had a mostly glowing reputation in the US. While this book did not directly answer that, I was surprised to learn that Lin had invented a very efficient style of typewriter that embodied a linguistic approach to the challenges, different from earlier, clunkier attempts. His design did not successfully move into the manufacturing stage, but it presaged a method followed by current computer basic typography in Chinese.
Continuing struggles over language reform evidenced themselves in the search for mechanical methods to print the language. This history intertwines those searches. I'm off now to see if Mullaney's promised book on Chinese computing systems has been published.

xvarenah's review against another edition

5.0

This is how socio-cultural history should be written.

cameroncl's review

challenging informative slow-paced

3.5

Somewhat uneven, but incredibly fascinating work about the history of Chinese information technology. There are parts of it that were definitely beyond me (as someone with no familiarity with Chinese characters), but in general the work was accessible enough despite that limitation. The final two chapters were by far the most interesting.

alpho's review

2.0

Really frustrating all the way through. It felt like it started from the author wanting to explore the (racist) Western conception of the Chinese typewriter, and I kept wanting more of what Chinese people thought of the Chinese typewriter. I’m still not clear on when a Chinese person would use a typewriter vs handwriting at any point in the evolution of the typewriter, and I feel like that should be relatively clear by the time I finish the book. Interesting topic, lots of interesting information, but what the author wanted to talk about was a relatively poor match for what I wanted to learn.