bwaber reviewed Kingdom of Characters by Jing Tsu
A Unique Look Into the Technical, Social, and Linguistic Development of Modern China
4 stars
Jing Tsu presents a fascinating look into how China adapted to global changes in the 19th and 20th century to imperialism and technological developments that made the widespread and rapid dissemination of language more important than ever. The chapters on the typewriter and telegraph in particular were especially insightful, with direct parallels around the higher prices paid per Chinese telegram due to ill-suited encoding to disparate large model tokenization charges today. There's more biographical color here than I like, but most others will probably find those parts entertaining. Highly recommend
