Beyond the Neon Lights
Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century
$31.95, £18.95 paperback
978-0-520-24378-1
Available Now
473 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 36 b/w photographs, 2 maps, 8 tables
September 1999, Available worldwide
Categories: History; Sociology; China; Asian History; Cultural Anthropology
September 1999, Available worldwide
Categories: History; Sociology; China; Asian History; Cultural Anthropology
"This is a splendid book. . . . It creates a superb sense of place as well as an evocation of a time. . . . [One] cannot recommend this book too strongly—not only for what it says about Shanghai, or indeed about China itself, but as an example of one way in which local history should be written."—China Review International
"A riveting and solidly crafted monograph."—China Quarterly
"A comprehensive analysis of Shanghai's social changes in the early 20th century. . . . A very clear portrayal of the shape and the shaping of Shanghai. Carefully researched and well balanced in its presentation, [the book] has proved that the average Chinese urban residents had played an important role in China's urbanization and modernization."—American Review of China Studies
"A well-researched study of daily life in early twentieth-century Shanghai. . . . Our understanding of twentieth-century Shanghai—and twentieth-century China—is richer because of [this book]."—Canadian Journal of History
"A detailed, enlightening, and wonderfully readable account of daily life in early twentieth-century China's greatest city. [Lu's] account will be consulted and quoted for many years by those dealing with the realities of daily life in Chinese cities."—American Historical Review
"Every page is a joy to read."—Geographical Review
"Lu's book attests to the vibrant state of scholarship on Chinese cities. Scholars of cities around the world will find ideas and techniques in this exemplary work of urban social history."—The Urban History Association
"A riveting and solidly crafted monograph."—China Quarterly
"A comprehensive analysis of Shanghai's social changes in the early 20th century. . . . A very clear portrayal of the shape and the shaping of Shanghai. Carefully researched and well balanced in its presentation, [the book] has proved that the average Chinese urban residents had played an important role in China's urbanization and modernization."—American Review of China Studies
"A well-researched study of daily life in early twentieth-century Shanghai. . . . Our understanding of twentieth-century Shanghai—and twentieth-century China—is richer because of [this book]."—Canadian Journal of History
"A detailed, enlightening, and wonderfully readable account of daily life in early twentieth-century China's greatest city. [Lu's] account will be consulted and quoted for many years by those dealing with the realities of daily life in Chinese cities."—American Historical Review
"Every page is a joy to read."—Geographical Review
"Lu's book attests to the vibrant state of scholarship on Chinese cities. Scholars of cities around the world will find ideas and techniques in this exemplary work of urban social history."—The Urban History Association
"From Hanchao Lu's clear and lively descriptions of Shanghai in the early twentieth century, we learn about the patterns of alleyways, design of row houses, rules for subletting, shapes of door-knockers, springs in rickshaw cushions, calls of hawkers, sidewalk haircuts, factory work, how nightsoil pots were emptied and cleaned, and the responsibility of neighbors to keep their noses in one another's affairs. We understand, in short, the base from which everything else about Shanghai at the time should be understood. A delightful and edifying book."—Perry Link, author of Evening Chats in Beijing
How did ordinary people live through the extraordinary changes that have swept across modern China? How did peasants transform themselves into urbanites? How did the citizens of Shanghai cope with the epic upheavals—revolution, war, and again revolution—that shook their lives? Even after decades of scholarship devoted to modern Chinese history, our understanding of the daily lives of the common people of China remains sketchy and incomplete. In this carefully researched study, Hanchao Lu weaves rich documentary data with ethnographic surveys and interviews to reconstruct the fabric of everyday life in China's largest and most complex city in the first half of this century.
Best Book in non-North American Urban History, Urban History Association
Republican Beijing: The City and Its Histories, by Madeleine Yue Dong
Rickshaw Beijing: City People and Politics in the 1920s, by David Strand
Rickshaw Beijing: City People and Politics in the 1920s, by David Strand