Shih Kuo-Heng. China Enters the Machine Age: A Study of Labor in Chinese War Industry

Harvard University Press, 1944. — 205 p.This is the first intensive study of a factory in Free China and the effects of the transfer of peasants from farms to factories. In the description of conditions and problems of the factory workers in China new light has been thrown on the general problem of the industrial development of China and its transition from an economy that has been mainly agricultural. The major questions which this book answers are: What class of people come to be factory hands in interior China? What are the aspirations of the workers now in active production? Are there any peculiar problems that labor in the interior presents to management? What prospect does the present labor situation hold for the future? The author, who conducted his investigations under the Yenching-Yunnan Station for Sociological Research, lived the life of a factory worker for months and worked under the supervision of a group of scientists. The validity of his results is unquestionable. Americans with present or future business interests in China will find the information in this book extremely practical and social scientists will be interested in the method of research as well as in the study of an early state of an industrial revolution.