In How to Enlighten, How to Mobilize: A Conceptual History of the Enlightenment in Modern China, Chien-shou Chen 陳建守 delineates how the concept of the Enlightenment was formed in modern China and how Chinese intellectuals interpreted the term. The author begins with an introduction in which he discusses the transnational nature of enlightenment. He suggests that enlightenment is not a Eurocentric notion. Readers shall examine how the notion was shaped in non-European national contexts in the age of globalization and how it was received by the local people in different regions around the world. Chen also points out the significance of the Enlightenment in East Asian history. Modern intellectuals in China, Japan, and Korea were all fascinated by the idea of enlightenment when they learned about it from the Europeans in the nineteenth century. After the introduction, Chen divides the monograph into two parts. The first part consists of three chapters and traces how the term was introduced to China in the late Qing and Republican eras. The second part consists of four chapters and examines how Chinese intellectuals manipulated the term in various ways to achieve their political, social, and cultural endeavors.

In the first part of the book, Chen looks at why Enlightenment in English, or Aufklärung in German, was translated as qimeng yundong 啟蒙運動 in Chinese. He is aware that the Enlightenment was rendered by combining two Chinese terms, qimeng 啟蒙 (enlighten) and yundong 運動 (movement). When Western concepts were introduced to China via Europeans or Japanese in the late nineteenth century, Chinese intellectuals tended to borrow existing Chinese terms to translate them. At the very beginning, a variety of Chinese terms were adopted to render “enlighten.” Among them, qimeng gradually stood out as a representative translation in the early 1920s. In traditional Chinese, qimeng referred to “educating people and freeing them from ignorance” (qifa mengmei 啟發蒙昧), which could roughly convey the meaning of “enlighten.” The Enlightenment was regarded by Chinese intellectuals as the era (shidai 時代) when Westerners pursued democracy and freedom against absolute monarchies in Europe. Hence, the Enlightenment was rendered as qimeng shidai 啟蒙時代 (the enlightening era). Philosophers from various European countries in this era such as Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) from Prussia, Denis Diderot (1713–1784) from France, and Adam Smith (1723–1790) from Britain were discussed in the publications written by Chinese intellectuals. Chen points out that Chinese scholars were particularly impressed by three French thinkers in the Enlightenment, namely Montesquieu (1689–1755), Voltaire (1694–1778), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). This was because they believed that the liberal democratic thought of these three philosophers provided the intellectual foundation for the French Revolution in 1789 which led to the collapse of the ancien régime and marked the completion of the Enlightenment.

In the 1920s, the Enlightenment in Europe was also recognized by some intellectuals as a movement (qimeng yundong 啟蒙運動, literally the enlightening movement). This was probably a result of the changing meaning of the traditional term yundong, or movement, in modern China. Yundong originally referred to the physical motions of the human body or mechanical motions of objects. The term was only given a social meaning in the last decade of the Qing dynasty, as in geming yundong 革命運動 (revolutionary movement). The social meaning of yundong was popularized in the early Republican era with the emergence of terms such as xinwenhua yundong 新文化運動 (New Culture Movement) and wusi yundong 五四運動 (May Fourth Movement). Both qimeng shidai and qimeng yundong were used to refer to the Enlightenment in the 1920s, while qimeng yundong became more popular towards the end of the decade. Such a shift in translation was also reflected in various dictionaries, encyclopedias, and textbooks. In the 1930s, the rendering of the Enlightenment became standardized as qimeng yundong.

In the second half of the book, Chen explores how the notion of enlightenment was manipulated by Chinese intellectuals for various purposes. Reviewing the history of the West, many Chinese historians regarded the Enlightenment as a breakthrough in the intellectual development of the Europeans. From the Chinese perspective, the Enlightenment in Europe marked a progression in human civilization, and it helped Europe evolve to modernity through an emphasis on freedom, democracy, and individuality. In the Republican era, Chinese intellectuals were eager to have their own enlightenment, which held the potential to educate the Chinese people and thus modernize their nation. Therefore, enlightenment became a trendy concept among Chinese intellectuals. It was hoped that Chinese enlightenment would transform China from a pre-modern backward society to a modern advanced one. Such an enlightenment would revive the Chinese nation with modern liberal democratic values. Some intellectuals even argue that enlightenment in China is a long progress, proceeding in a linear way from the First Opium War through various political, social, and cultural movements until the present. During the long twentieth century, Chinese intellectuals of various decades often claimed that they were leading a “new” Chinese enlightenment that transcended previous “old” enlightenments. For example, some intellectuals of the 1930s, such as Chen Weishi 陳唯實 (1913–1974) and Zhang Shenfu 張申府 (1893–1986), called for a “new enlightenment” (xinqimeng yundong 新啟蒙運動) in comparison with the “old” enlightenment, referring to the May Fourth Movement. Living in Taiwan after 1949, Yin Haiguang 殷海光 (1919–1969) advocated for new enlightenment by reviving the May Fourth spirit — science and democracy. From Yin’s perspective, promoting Chinese enlightenment served as a shield against communism dominating the Chinese mainland. In the first decade of Deng Xiaoping’s 鄧小平 (1904–1997) rule, intellectuals such as Wang Yuanhua 王元化 (1920–2008) pioneered in leading another wave of “new enlightenment” in Mainland China, which unfortunately ended with the Tiananmen crackdown on the 1989 protests.

This monograph is groundbreaking because Chien-shou Chen answers two questions that historians rarely look into. First, when and why was the Enlightenment in Europe translated as qimeng yundong? China specialists have been conducting research for decades on the Chinese Enlightenment, which roughly refers to the period between the Hundred Days’ Reform and the May Fourth Movement. They usually render the Enlightenment as qimeng yundong in their scholarly works. Very few of them have pondered why this Chinese term became the standard translation. Chen addresses this question in his book. He traces in detail the process by which qimeng yundong became a widely recognized term for the Enlightenment by browsing a large pool of Chinese publications in the late Qing period and the Republican era. While it is not difficult to understand why Chinese intellectuals equated qimeng to “enlighten,” the reason why yundong was selected as part of the term is interesting. Chen suggests that yundong, or “movement,” was used by the Chinese to describe the Enlightenment because they regarded the Enlightenment as a force or motion to push ahead the progress of human civilization. This interpretation was particularly important to the Chinese people because China was lagging behind the West technologically and was under the threat of foreign imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century. Chinese intellectuals admired what they saw as the achievements of the Enlightenment and were hoping to launch one for their country. From the very beginning, the Chinese perception of enlightenment was different from the Europeans’ view because the Chinese intellectuals adopted it as a means to strengthen their nation against foreign aggression. This explains why Chinese intellectuals assigned enlightenment a meaning of a social movement in which all Chinese people should participate. The Chinese Enlightenment was supposed to be a top-down movement motivated by the intellectuals. This leads us to the second question that Chien-shou Chen answers in his book. In what ways did Chinese intellectuals realize their enlightenment?

Most scholars in intellectual history perceive the Chinese Enlightenment as a consistent and monolithic quest for liberal democratic values and scientific development in the twentieth century. In this monograph, Chen argues that the Chinese Enlightenment was more diversified than historians may have thought. Various cultural endeavors, such as the May Fourth Movement, the New Enlightenment of the 1930s, Yin Haiguang’s advocacy for enlightenment, and Wang Yuanhua’s call for another enlightenment in the 1980s, each had their own features and characteristics. Leaders of these attempts aimed at achieving more and transcending the previous ones. They also placed the Chinese Enlightenment in different cultural-political contexts. In the 1930s, intellectuals had miscellaneous interpretations of the new Enlightenment. Chen Weishi saw it as a patriotic movement against Japanese aggression. Zhang Shenfu suggested that the new enlightenment should cover every aspect of a nation-building process. In the 1950s, Yin Haiguang regarded the study of logics (luojixue 邏輯學) as a foundation for the Chinese Enlightenment. He also utilized the Chinese Enlightenment against the expansion of communism. In the 1980s, Wang Yuanhua hoped to revive the May Fourth Movement via a new enlightenment, but the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989 prompted him to reassess the May Fourth Movement. In the 1990s, he called for a departure from radicalism in the pursuit of science and democracy. Chen’s, Zhang’s, Yin’s, and Wang’s perceptions of the Chinese Enlightenment varied from each other, even though the four men shared the common goals of political democracy and the advancement in science and technology. The long journey of national awakening has been ongoing until the present and will continue in the foreseeable future. Chien-shou Chen’s in-depth delineation of diverse approaches to the Chinese Enlightenment is the first of its kind in scholarly literature. It lays the foundation for future studies of each effort to enlightenment.

While this book focuses on advocates for the Chinese Enlightenment and their dedication to the quest for modernity, Chien-shou Chen could have also explored how opponents of Enlightenment perceived the idea and interacted with the advocates in debates. For example, Hsiao-yen Peng 彭小妍 explores the concept of “counter-enlightenment” (fanqimeng 反啟蒙) in her recent monographs, where she discusses how Lebensanschauung, a German term for life view, was rendered as renshengguan 人生觀 in Chinese. She also looks into how the concept of life view influenced the philosophical debates between the two rival camps for and against the Chinese Enlightenment (Peng Reference Peng2019, Reference Peng2023). In his future research, Chien-shou Chen may consider comparing the similarities and differences in the understandings of key terms by leaders of both camps and how these interpretations impacted the Chinese intellectual circle.

Overall, this monograph is a recommended reading for scholars and students who would like to learn more about the lexical meaning of the Chinese translation of the Enlightenment and how Chinese intellectuals borrowed the term to describe their own endeavors for national revitalization.