In this study, Robert Culp surveys the complicated development of the publishing industry from the last decade of the Qing empire through to the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. He does so by focusing primarily on the three largest commercial presses during that period, Shangwu yinshuguan (Commercial Press), Zhonghua shuju and Shijie shuju. His ongoing concern is with individual figures, the men who shaped these companies and in turn largely created the cultural landscape of modern China over six decades. To that end, The Power of Print condenses biographical information often gleaned from diaries and memoirs. With each major change in the fortunes of the major publishers, he is at pains to show how publishing filled the employment gap for intellectuals and provided a basis for their evolving sense of identity and cultural authority.

The bulk of the study is devoted to the Republican decades. During that time, these publishers tried several different models of organization to maximize their efficiency in meeting the needs of their readers – and to satisfy their own intellectual ambitions. At first they recruited old-style scholars who had trained for the imperial civil service. But soon after the fall of the dynasty, it was clear that new knowledge brought back by students who had studied abroad was of greater interest and greater social value than the old perspectives. As time went on, ever greater numbers of China's own high-school and college graduates came to work for these publishers. Their dictionaries, Ciyuan and Cihai, along with extensive book series, played central roles in educating China's citizens at large. Moreover, these publishers rigorously maintained traditional culture by reprinting classical texts as the glorious heritage of a new nation, employing old-style scholars for this work.

With great detail, Culp traces the reformulation of editorial boards and the shifting proportions of the various levels of intellectual workers in these publishing houses as editors responded to the changing political, social and economic landscape. Early in the 20th century, Commercial Press editors realized the potential for growth in creating textbooks for the schools being created throughout the country. This effort was extremely profitable, leading them to build a library of rare imprints and to reprint particularly outstanding old books. By the early 1920s, textbooks all had to be rewritten to provide students with models of writing in the new vernacular language; Shijie shuju was quick to capitalize on this new demand. Culp gives extremely helpful vignettes of their various experiments in writing vernacular for elementary and middle school students.

Throughout this period of “print capitalism,” the collective goal of all in book production was to make a profit. This involved intellectuals from all fields, academics as well as professionals, either as editorial staff members or as producers of manuscripts for their numerous series of ancient classics, educational materials for the common reader, and specialized studies for academics at all levels of the educational system. Publishers produced cutting-edge new knowledge, whether translated from foreign sources or the product of research by China's scholars. Despite varying political whims, these three great publishing houses saw their role as pedagogical for all of society – and were remarkably successful.

Some conclusions about how the publishing industry adapted after 1949 may seem surprising. Certainly by 1954 joint public–private ownership was obligatory, and yet editorial practices from the 1930s were allowed because of their efficacy in educating the populace about this new era. Although some editors were harshly critiqued during the Hundred Flowers and Great Leap campaigns, they were quickly rehabilitated for their expertise. But by the middle 1960s, these accommodations drew the ire of cultural ideologues Yao Wenyuan and Zhang Chunqiao; attacks on the major publishers were among the first salvos of the Cultural Revolution, and they changed the publishing scene dramatically.

Culp writes in a clear, concise prose style; his notes are extensive and helpful for further research in this area. He also regularly sums up what he has said before. This allows the reader to follow his complicated arguments with certainty. It also facilitates assigning the book a chapter at a time; readers will be reminded of what came before, with thorough summaries at the ends of sections and of the book itself (esp. pp. 252–262). As Culp explains, “this book illuminates distinctive features of material economic production, knowledge and cultural production, and social production” (p. 9). He succeeds in this project by relying on copious evidence gleaned from years of careful research. This monograph will occupy a prominent place on all reading lists concerning the modernization process in China, its book history, the development of industries and markets, and the economic and political factors in the shaping of modern Chinese culture.