Study On Modern Fujian Christian Book Industry (1842-1949)

Fujian Christian book industry is the outset of modern Fujian book industry. It plays the main role on Fujian publishing stage in late 19th century for its early publishing institution, advanced printing technique, miscellaneous publishing formats, various types of literatures and broad publication contents. Based on books, as well as leading newspapers and periodicals published by missions, this paper investigates Fujian Protestant book industry in the last hundred years, from 1842 to 1949, views the meaning of Fujian Christian publishing activities by looking into the forming of the publication institution and its evolution, the evolvement of the publishing contents, the changing of the authors' statuses, the variety of the publishing styles, the transformation of readers' requirements and the diversification of book formats. Since former research works only emphasized the "missionary history" and "culture communication mode", which is not able to help us understand the imply meaning of the development of Fujian Christian book industry, this paper has changed to discuss from single social civilization point of view to different multidimensional points of views. It not only talks about the missionaries but also the contributions done by Chinese authors to Fujian Christian book industry. The author tries to use cross and penetrative method to study Fujian Christian book industry such as using the knowledge of science of religion, history, communication science, history philology, sociology, statistics etc. The author considers that the purpose for Christian missions to undertake the publishing activities was to spread Christianity. At ? the beginning, Christian publication was regarded as the main and effective missionized tool. With the development of the missionary activities and the adjustment of the missionary policy, missions actively promoted book industry, published various kinds of books, brought western culture to Fujian and encouraged the culture communication between China and Western countries. In a word, Fujian Christian book industry has led Fujian book industry to complete its modernized process.