This book gives a concise history of biophysics in contemporary China,
from about 1949 to 1976. It outlines how a science specialty evolved
from an ambiguous and amorphous field into a fully-fledged academic
discipline in the socio-institutional contexts of contemporary China.
The book relates how, while initially consisting of cell biologists, the
Chinese biophysics community redirected their disciplinary priorities
toward rocket science in the late 1950s to accommodate the national
interests of the time. Biophysicists who had worked on biological
sounding rockets were drawn to the military sector and continued to
contribute to human spaceflight in post-Mao China. Besides the
rocket-and-space missions which provided the material context for
biophysics to expand in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Chinese
biophysicists also created research and educational programs surrounding
biophysics by exploiting the institutional opportunities afforded by the
policy emphasis on science's role to drive modernization. The book
explores and demonstrates the collective achievements and struggles of
Chinese biophysicists in building their scientific discipline.