From Wax Cylinders to WeChat: The Strange and Circuitous Journey of Berthold Laufer’s Chinese Recordings

By the early years of the twentieth century, China had suffered unduly at the hands of European, American, and Japanese colonialism. The Chinese citizenry had been deeply dissatisfied with the way the Qing dynasty—itself a foreign dynasty ruled by Manchus—had failed to protect China from the encroachment of increasing numbers of foreign powers. By the …