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6 - Urban Modernity in Republican China (1895–1949)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2021

Toby Lincoln
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
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Summary

Industrialization was the catalyst for the spread of urban modernity across China in the first half of the twentieth century, although most factories were in large coastal cities and the northeast in Manchuria. The Japanese invasion of 1937 forced the Nationalist government and millions of people to move west, and cities such as Chongqing and Kunming grew substantially. Cities were now connected via rail, road, telegraph, telephone, and air travel, and the urban system was reconfigured along these new communications networks. Chinese cities acquired commercial and industrial districts, new administrative zones, parks, and residential areas, while new building technology and architectural styles transformed urban skylines. Experiments in municipal governance came together in a suite of new laws passed after the Nationalist government came to power in 1927 that sought to impose order and standardization across the country, and urban plans were produced for many cities, although many never made it off the drawing board. No longer was American, European, or Japanese culture confined to coastal treaty ports. Teachers, doctors, engineers, shop girls, bank clerks, and factory workers across the country were all able to purchase global brands, watch films made in Hollywood or Shanghai, and listen to jazz in clubs.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Esherick, Joseph, ed. Remaking the Chinese City: Modernity and National Identity, 1900–1950. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000.Google Scholar
James, Farrer, and Field, Andrew David. Shanghai Nightscapes: A Nocturnal Biography of a Global City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Gaubatz, Piper Rae. Beyond the Great Wall: Urban Form and Transformation on the Chinese Frontiers. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Lincoln, Toby. Urbanizing China in War and Peace: The Case of Wuxi County. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Hanchao, Lu. Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Musgrove, Charles. China’s Contested Capital: Architecture, Ritual, and Response in Nanjing. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Yue Dong, Madeleine. Republican Beijing: The City and Its Histories. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.Google Scholar

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