“Mr. Science”, May Fourth, and the Global History of Science

Abstract This paper argues that Mr. Science and the May 4th Movement was a significant chapter in the global history of science. To contextualize the story better, I will adopt three broad interpretive frames. First, I shall place Mr. Science and May Fourth in a longer view than the particular events in the 1910s–1920s. This will allow us to trace the historical changes and the evolving institutions, discourses, and practitioners of science over a few generations. Second, I shall highlight the most relevant global conditions. Western imperialism was of course a crucial setting, but there were more specific historical moments that also deserve attention. Finally, comparisons and connections; it is necessary to examine the transmutations of ideas, knowledge, and institutions across political and cultural borders. In other words, we should study Mr. Science and May Fourth in the mode of global intellectual history. Other than China, my main comparative cases are India and Japan, though I will also refer to Ottoman Turkey. Taken together, these examples provide a range of comparisons central to our inquiry into Mr. Science and the global history of science.