This book examines cities of the Jiangnan region of south-central China between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries, an area considered to be the model of a su

Despite the importance of books and the written word in Chinese society, the history of the book in China is a topic that has been little explored. This pioneer

This book explores aspects of this vibrant market economy in late imperial China, and by presenting a reconstructed narrative of economic development in the ear

In 2008 for the first time the majority of the planet's inhabitants lived in cities and towns. Becoming globally urban has been one of mankind's greatest collec

This ambitious work traces a social history of semicolonialism in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century China. It takes as its central concern the intert