A Great Undertaking is about the introduction of mechanization to the coal mines of Pingxiang County, China, at the turn of the 20th century when the demand for coal began to burgeon both regionally and internationally. Located in the highlands of Jiangxi, near the provincial border with Hunan, Pingxiang had been an agricultural community for generations, with coalmining as a seasonal activity.

Jeff Hornibrook, professor of history at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, has compiled a fascinating study of the social and political tumult that occurred when coal-mining technologies and management systems from western Europe were injected into the county without any prior adaptation to the local circumstances. The inevitable result was caustic relations not only between the recipients and the providers, but also severe disruptions among the members of both groups. With little warning, the people of Pingxiang – at all levels – were faced with never-imagined adjustments to their roles and status. The ensuing painful adjustments and uncertainties led to rebellions and bloodshed. No one trusted anyone anymore.

Clearly organized, with polished text, this book is a pleasure to read and will be of interest not only to China historians and political scientists, but also to people analysing the pre-requisites for successful technology transfer and multilateral economic development. It largely pivots on the role of one Gustav Leinung, an engineer from Germany, who was sent by the imperial court in 1896 to examine the coal deposits in the area to determine their suitability to fuel an ironworks in Wuhan to the north. He went on to become director of the Pingxiang Coal Mines and to play a key role in the development and running of the Hanyeping industries for some 20 years. A fundamental contradiction, however, was the fact that the mechanization that had been developing in western Europe was designed for the purposes of raising production with a smaller, more skilled labour force. However, there was obviously no shortage of labour in China, and most was completely unskilled.

In carrying out this research, Hornibrook translated and analysed thousands of strands of information gleaned from the county gazetteer and documents written by the county magistrate and the Chinese and German mine managers, as well as biographies and memoirs of elites and commoners, correspondence between gentry and powerful officials, travelogues of American missionaries, and engineers' letters and telegraphs collected in the Sheng Xuanhuai Archives. Sheng Xuanhuai was an official-merchant who sought to link Chinese merchants, engineers and officials with foreign engineers and investors to devise a strategy for a Western-style modernization of China through a variety of pursuits including the development of large-scale heavy machine and weapons industries and railway track production. However, the Hanyeping Coal and Iron Company that he ran racked up debilitating debts and Hornibrook argues that “the failure of foreign engineers and others to assimilate all of the country's inhabitants into a united community dedicated to the modernization process hindered the transformation of the economy and society and sparked not an industrial revolution in Pingxiang County but the Communist Revolution” (p. 6).

Hornibrook provides minute details of the lives of the local people and foreigners as the societal and political transformations took place, including their living conditions and social circumstances. He successfully weaves together descriptions of several simultaneous events, and also captures the strengths and weaknesses of the key personalities involved. Of course, the accident rates and the illnesses relating to the mining and factory conditions make for gut-wrenching reading.

The summaries that Hornibrook provides at the end of each chapter are a real asset to the book's flow. The only shortcoming, in my mind, was the single map provided. It is unfortunate that it did not reproduce more clearly, and that more maps were not provided. As this book is about one particular location in China, it would have been interesting to have had a series of larger-scale maps depicting the topography, the original best agricultural land, the locations chosen for the mining activities, ancillary industries and other economic activities, the main (and changing) transport arteries, and some of the key political and social landmarks. Tables presenting the number of labourers employed, and the types and quantities of their output over the years, would also have been a bonus.