This work examines the history of urban planning and administration during modern China's first age of city-centered politics, focusing on the New Policies of the late Qing and the city administration movement of the 1920s. Between 1895 and 1937, the management of cities emerged as one of the chief challenges for the Chinese state. Through a detailed case study, based on newly available archival sources, of the process of urban reform in Chengdu, a key provincial capital in the interior, Kristin Stapleton shows how urban reformers permanently changed urban administration, the urban landscape, and urban life by promoting a new type of orderly and productive community in population centers despite the many upheavals of the late Qing and Republican eras.

Civilizing Chengdu: Chinese Urban Reform, 1895-1937

History

Stapleton, Kristin

Asia

Harvard University Asia Center

Historical novels can be windows into other cultures and eras, but it's not always clear what's fact and what's fiction. Thousands have read Ba Jin's influential novel Family, but few realize how much he shaped his depiction of 1920s China to suit his story and his politics. In Fact in Fiction, Kristin Stapleton puts Ba Jin's bestseller into full historical context, both to illustrate how it successfully portrays human experiences during the 1920s and to reveal its historical distortions. Stapleton's attention to historical evidence and clear prose that directly addresses themes and characters from Family create a book that scholars, students, and general readers will enjoy. She focuses on Chengdu, China, Ba Jin's birthplace and the setting for Family, which was also a cultural and political center of western China. The city's richly preserved archives allow Stapleton to create an intimate portrait of a city that seemed far from the center of national politics of the day but clearly felt the forces of―and contributed to―the turbulent stream of Chinese history.

Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin’s Family

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Stanford University Press

A History of Asia

A History of Asia is the only textbook to provide a historical overview of the whole of this region, encompassing India, China, Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Engaging and lively, it chronicles the complex political, social, and intellectual histories of the area from prehistory to the present day. Taking a comparative approach throughout, the book offers a balanced history of each major tradition, also dedicating coverage to countries or regions such as Vietnam and Central Asia that are less frequently discussed in depth. This eighth edition has been streamlined and updated to reflect the most recent scholarship on Asian history, bringing the book up to date with recent events and key trends in historical research. Highlights of the book include close-up portraits of significant Asian cities, detailed discussion of environmental factors that have shaped Asian history, quotes from Asian poetry and philosophical writing, and attention to questions of gender and national identity. Highly illustrated with images and maps, each chapter also contains discussion questions, primary source excerpts, and in-depth boxed features. Written clearly throughout, A History of Asia is the perfect introductory textbook for all students of the history, culture, and politics of this fascinating region.

Murphey, Rhoads

Reference

Routledge

The Modern City in Asia (Elements in Global Urban History)

World

Cambridge University Press

Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin's Family

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