The Introduction outlines the book’s scope and familiarizes the reader with the history of Angang and industrial Manchuria. In the process, it positions Mao-era China within multiple bodies of scholarship: The global history of late industrialization; the transnational history of Manchuria; the intersection of geopolitics and technological transfers; and the study of state-owned enterprises in China.

This chapter examines bureaucratic politics surrounding Angang in the early People’s Republic of China (PRC). Major state-owned enterprises (SOEs) such as Angang were subject to both vertical control from the PRC government in Beijing and horizontal control from local Chinese Communist Party organizations. The tension between these two lines of control manifested in debates over the “one-chief system” – a Soviet-style top-down management structure. This tension was also evident in Angang’s construction, production, and sales. Despite the ostensibly centralized system, the PRC planned economy operated at the grassroots level as a field of constant negotiation among various government offices and SOEs, each interpreting the state policies in their own way.

Chapter 4 studies the political, cultural, and economic impact of foreign machetes and other agricultural tools. It shows how popular men and women’s expert knowledge about these goods was not transferred from above or received from abroad but inherited and acquired in practice. Peasants and muleteers used machetes to clear the land, grow their crops, and travel the country; artisans, bogas, and smallholders, to defend their honor, their lives, and their property. As this chapter shows, over the course of the nineteenth century, foreign tools, especially the machete, reshaped these popular actors’ collective identities and underscored their contribution to the nation’s material improvement and progress – not only as part of the country’s labor force but as consumers themselves. Although these Plebeian consumers might have had limited choices due to their limited purchasing power, this did not preclude them from appropriating foreign tools, expressing dissatisfaction with certain agricultural implements, and seeking ways to access the ones they liked and preferred. Most important, machetes allowed them to shape and reiterate their citizenship on the ground. As such, Colombia’s popular consumers became not only critical agents in the global market but active and productive citizens of the new republic.

Based on the recorded experiences of foreign merchants and local shopkeepers, literature, and visual sources, Chapter 3 delves into how the tastes and preferences of Colombia’s Plebeian consumers influenced the production of textiles abroad. It shows how their demands for specific colors, designs, and shapes were communicated through a chain of intermediaries to manufacturers in the United States and England, who risked having their merchandise returned and losing customers if they failed to comply. The chapter emphasizes that terms of trade were never solely determined by US or European interests; the preferences of everyday Colombian men and women actively shaped the republic’s marketplace.

The conclusion encapsulates the book’s main arguments, discussing the role of Manchuria in modern China, the intricate interplay between technology transfers and national security, and the complex manifestation of power within Mao-era China’s socialist political economy. In doing so, it contextualizes Mao-era China within the broader global narrative of socialism and capitalism.