Contemporary Chinese Studies – serie

In the mid-1910s, what historians call the "Golden Age ofChinese Capitalism" began, accompanied by a technologicaltransformation that included the drastic expansion of China's"Gutenberg revolution." Gutenberg in Shanghaiexamines this process. It finds the origins of that revolution in thecountry's printing industries of the late imperial period andanalyzes their subsequent development in the Republican era.

This book, which relies on documents previously unavailable to bothWestern and Chinese researchers, demonstrates how Western technologyand evolving traditional values resulted in the birth of a unique formof print capitalism whose influence on Chinese culture was far-reachingand irreversible. Its conclusion contests scholarly arguments that viewChina's technological development as slowed by culture, or thatinterpret Chinese modernity as mere cultural continuity.

A vital reevaluation of Chinese modernity, Gutenberg inShanghai will be enthusiastically received by scholars of Chinesehistory and by specialists in cultural studies, political science,sociology, the history of the book, and the anthropology of science andtechnology.

Norman Smith reveals the literary world of Japanese-occupied Manchuria (Manchukuo, 1932-45) and examines the lives, careers, and literary legacies of seven prolific Chinese women writers during the period. Smith shows how a complex blend of fear and freedom produced an environment in which Chinese women writers could articulate dissatisfaction with the overtly patriarchal and imperialist nature of the Japanese cultural agenda while working in close association with colonial institutions.

The first book in English on women's history in twentieth-century Manchuria, Resisting Manchukuo adds to a growing literature that challenges traditional understandings of Japanese colonialism.

Teachers' Schools and the Making of the Modern ChineseNation-State is an innovative account of educational and socialtransformations in politically tumultuous early twentieth-centuryChina. It focuses on the unique nature of Chinese teachers'schools, which bridged Chinese and Western ideals, and the criticalrole that these schools played in the changes sweeping Chinese society.It also documents their role in the empowerment of women and theproduction of grassroots forces leading to the CommunistRevolution.

Teachers' Schools and the Making of the Modern ChineseNation-State will attract attention from scholars in Asianstudies, Chinese history, educational history, and comparative studies,and will also appeal to graduate and undergraduate students in thesefields.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan sprang up as independent states along China's western frontier. Suddenly, Beijing was forced to deal with internal challenges to its authority at its border as well as international competition for energy and authority in Central Asia.

The New Silk Road Diplomacy traces how China, faced with domestic and international challenges, constructed a gradualist approach to Central Asia that prioritized multilateral diplomacy. Although China's primary objective was to ensure stability in its own Muslim-majority domain, it also worked with Russia and the Central Asian republics to increase confidence and security in the border areas and facilitate commerce. Regional diplomacy has, however, brought China into increased competition with the United States, which views Central Asia as vital to its strategic interests, particularly after the attacks of 9/11.

This multifaceted book offers a fresh perspective on the foreign policy of modern China. It will appeal to experts and students of Central Asian affairs and foreign policy and anyone interested in contemporary China and its relationship with its neighbours.

In the early 1900s, the Qing dynasty implemented a nationwide schoolsystem as part of a series of institutional reforms to shore up itspower.

A School in Every Village recounts how villagersand local state officials in Haicheng County enacted orders toestablish rural primary schools from 1904 to 1931. Although theCommunists, contemporary observers, and more recent scholarship haveall depicted rural society as feudal and backward and the educationalreforms of the early twentieth century a failure, Elizabeth VanderVendraws on untapped archival materials to reveal that villagers capablyintegrated foreign ideas and models into a system that was at oncetraditional and modern, Chinese and Western. Her portrait of educationreform not only challenges received notions about themodernity-tradition binary in Chinese history, it also addresses topicscentral to scholarly debates on modern China, including state making,gender, and the impact of global ideas on local society.

The end of the Qing dynasty in China saw an unprecedented explosion of print journalism. By the turn of the twentieth century, not only had Chinese-owned newspapers become more influential than anyone could have anticipated, but it was the supposedly frivolous xiaobao, the "little" or "minor" papers, that captivated and empowered the public.

Merry Laughter and Angry Curses reveals how the late-Qing-era tabloid press became the voice of the people. As periodical publishing reached a fever pitch, tabloids had free rein to criticize officials, mock the elite, and scandalize readers. Tabloid writers produced a massive amount of anti-establishment literature, whose distinctive humour and satirical style were both potent and popular. This book shows the tabloid community to be both a producer of meanings and a participant in the social and cultural dialogue that would shake the foundations of imperial China and lead to the 1911 Republican Revolution.