Reed (history, Ohio State Y.-Columbus) examines the Shanghai-based printing and publishing system that delivered words, texts, and ideas to a new mass audience preoccupied with aiding China's 20th-century quest for wealth, power, and international stature. He traces the transfer of industrialized printing technology to China from 1807 to 1930; the golden age of the city's lithographic printer-publishers from 1876 to 1905; commercial, technological, and organizational innovation in the new-style publishing world to about 1911, and the companies Commercial Press, Zhonghua Books, and World Books 1912-37. U. of Hawaii published the paperbound edition. U. of British Columbia Press published the hardbound. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)