Kenneth J. Hammond is associate professor of history at New Mexico State University. Kristin Stapleton is associate professor of history and director of the Asian Studies Program at the University of Buffalo.

Combining meticulous scholarship with the accessibility of biography, this volume provides readers with an intriguing means of exploring the meaning of modernity in China. The ten individuals whose life stories are chronicled here are not all extraordinary, but their experiences all reveal a China far different and far more complex than the traditional stereotype of a stagnant society waiting passively for the West to bring its modernizing influence. A lively Manchu princess, an illiterate peasant woman, a nineteenth-century Chinese photographer, the determined students of May Fourth—these are just a sampling of the men and women who bring Chinese history, in all its dynamism and tragedy, to life in these pages.

• IntroductionChapter 1: Li Shizhen: Early Modern Scientist Chapter 2: Amazon, Artist, and Adventurer: A Courtesan in Late Imperial ChinaChapter 3: Zou Boqi on Vision and Photography in Nineteenth-Century ChinaChapter 4: Ho Kai: A Chinese Reformer in Colonial Hong KongChapter 5: Der Ling: Manchu Princess, Cultural Advisor, and AuthorChapter 6: Li Chenggan: Patriot, Populist, and Factory PatriarchChapter 7: The Beijing University Students in the May Fourth Era: A Collective BiographyChapter 8: The Reluctant MendicantChapter 9: Hu Lanqi: Rebellious Woman, Revolutionary Soldier, Discarded Heroine, Triumphant SurvivorChapter 10: Zhao Ruiqin: A Peasant Woman in Gansu and Domestic Worker in Beijing

Kenneth J. Hammond is associate professor of history at New Mexico State University. Kristin Stapleton is associate professor of history and director of the Asian Studies Program at the University of Buffalo.

Combining meticulous scholarship with the accessibility of biography, this volume provides readers with an intriguing means of exploring the meaning of modernity in China. The ten individuals whose life stories are chronicled here are not all extraordinary, but their experiences all reveal a China far different and far more complex than the traditional stereotype of a stagnant society waiting passively for the West to bring its modernizing influence. A lively Manchu princess, an illiterate peasant woman, a nineteenth-century Chinese photographer, the determined students of May Fourth—these are just a sampling of the men and women who bring Chinese history, in all its dynamism and tragedy, to life in these pages.

• IntroductionChapter 1: Li Shizhen: Early Modern Scientist Chapter 2: Amazon, Artist, and Adventurer: A Courtesan in Late Imperial ChinaChapter 3: Zou Boqi on Vision and Photography in Nineteenth-Century ChinaChapter 4: Ho Kai: A Chinese Reformer in Colonial Hong KongChapter 5: Der Ling: Manchu Princess, Cultural Advisor, and AuthorChapter 6: Li Chenggan: Patriot, Populist, and Factory PatriarchChapter 7: The Beijing University Students in the May Fourth Era: A Collective BiographyChapter 8: The Reluctant MendicantChapter 9: Hu Lanqi: Rebellious Woman, Revolutionary Soldier, Discarded Heroine, Triumphant SurvivorChapter 10: Zhao Ruiqin: A Peasant Woman in Gansu and Domestic Worker in Beijing

Kenneth J. Hammond is associate professor of history at New Mexico State University. Kristin Stapleton is associate professor of history and director of the Asian Studies Program at the University of Buffalo.

Combining meticulous scholarship with the accessibility of biography, this volume provides readers with an intriguing means of exploring the meaning of modernity in China. The ten individuals whose life stories are chronicled here are not all extraordinary, but their experiences all reveal a China far different and far more complex than the traditional stereotype of a stagnant society waiting passively for the West to bring its modernizing influence. A lively Manchu princess, an illiterate peasant woman, a nineteenth-century Chinese photographer, the determined students of May Fourth—these are just a sampling of the men and women who bring Chinese history, in all its dynamism and tragedy, to life in these pages.

• IntroductionChapter 1: Li Shizhen: Early Modern Scientist Chapter 2: Amazon, Artist, and Adventurer: A Courtesan in Late Imperial ChinaChapter 3: Zou Boqi on Vision and Photography in Nineteenth-Century ChinaChapter 4: Ho Kai: A Chinese Reformer in Colonial Hong KongChapter 5: Der Ling: Manchu Princess, Cultural Advisor, and AuthorChapter 6: Li Chenggan: Patriot, Populist, and Factory PatriarchChapter 7: The Beijing University Students in the May Fourth Era: A Collective BiographyChapter 8: The Reluctant MendicantChapter 9: Hu Lanqi: Rebellious Woman, Revolutionary Soldier, Discarded Heroine, Triumphant SurvivorChapter 10: Zhao Ruiqin: A Peasant Woman in Gansu and Domestic Worker in Beijing