Remaking the Chinese City: Modernity and National Identity, 1900-1950

Published by University of Hawaii Press 1999

Remaking the Chinese City

Modernity and National Identity, 1900-1950

Edited by: Joseph W. Esherick

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824864125

Overview
Contents

About this book

In China today skyscrapers tower over ancient temples, freeways deliver lines of cars and tour buses to imperial palaces, cinema houses compete with old theaters featuring Peking Opera. The disparity evidenced in the contemporary Chinese cityscape can be traced to the early decades of the twentieth century, when government elites sought to transform cities into a new world that would be at once modern and distinctly Chinese. Remaking the Chinese City aims to capture the full diversity of recent Chinese urbanism by examining the modernist transformations of China's cities in the first half of the twentieth century.

Collecting in one place some of the most interesting and exciting new work on Chinese urban history, this volume presents thirteen essays discussing ten Chinese cities: the commercial and industrial center of Shanghai; the old capital, Beijing; the southern coastal city of Canton; the interior's Chengdu; the tourist city of Hangzhou; the utopian "New Capital" built in Manchuria during the Japanese occupation; the treaty port of Tianjin; the Nationalists' capital in Nanjing; and temporary wartime capitals of Wuhan and Chongqing.

Unlike past treatments of early twentieth-century China, which characterize the period as one of failure and decay, the contributors to this volume describe an exciting world in constant and fundamental change. During this time, the Chinese city was remade to accommodate parks and police, paved roads and public spaces. Rickshaws, trolleys, and buses allowed the growth of new downtowns. Department stores, theaters, newspapers, and modern advertising nourished a new urban identity. Sanitary regulations and traffic laws were enforced, and modern media and transport permitted unprecedented freedoms. Yet despite their fondness for things Western and modern, early urban planners envisioned cities that would lead the Chinese nation and preserve Chinese tradition. The very desire for modernity led to the construction of a visible and accessible national past and the imagining of a distinctive national future. In their investigation of the national capitals of the period, the essays show how cities were reshaped to represent and serve the nation. To promote tourism, traditions were invented and recycled for the pleasure and edification of new middle-class and foreign consumers of culture.

Abundantly illustrated with maps and photographs, Remaking the Chinese City presents the best and most current scholarship on modern Chinese cities. Its thoroughness and detailed scholarship will appeal to the specialist, while its clarity and scope will engage the general reader.

Contributors: Michael Tsin on Canton, Ruth Rogaski and Brett Sheehan on Tianjin, David Buck on Changchun, Kristin Stapleton on Chengdu, Liping Wang on Hangzhou, Madeleine Dong on Beijing, Charles Musgrove on Nanjing, Stephen MacKinnon on Wuhan, Lee MacIsaac on Chongqing, and Jeffrey Wasserstrom and David Strand with concluding essays.

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Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Chapter 1. Modernity and Nation in the Chinese City Joseph Esherick Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I: The Modernist City
Chapter 2. Canton Remapped Michael Tsin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
Chapter 3. Hygienic Modernity in Tianjin Ruth Rogaski Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	30
Chapter 4. Urban Identity and Urban Networks in Cosmopolitan Cities: Banks and Bankers in Tianjin, 1900–1937 Brett Sheehan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
Chapter 5. Railway City and National Capital Two Faces of the Modern in Changchun David Buck Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
Chapter 6. Yang Sen in Chengdu Urban Planning in the Interior Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	90
Part II: Tradition and Modernity
Chapter 7. Tourism and Spatial Change in Hangzhou, 1911–1927 Liping Wang Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	107
Chapter 8. Defining Beiping Urban Reconstruction and National Identity, 1928–1936 Madeleine Yue Dong Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
Chapter 9. Building a Dream Constructing a National Capital in Nanjing, 1927–1937 Charles Musgrove Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Part III: City and Nation
Chapter 10. Wuhan’s Search for Identity in the Republican Period Stephen MacKinnon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	161
Chapter 11. The City as Nation: Creating a Wartime Capital in Chongqing Lee McIsaac Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	174
Chapter 12. Locating Old Shanghai Having Fits about Where It Fits Jeffrey Wasserstrom Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	192
Chapter 13. New Chinese Cities David Strand Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225
Glossary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	273
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	275

Language: English
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 288

eBook

Published: January 1, 2000
ISBN: 9780824864125