Republican Beijing : the city and its histories / Madeleine Yue Dong ; with a foreword by Thomas Bender.
"Madeleine Yue Dong offers the first comprehensive history of Republican Beijing, examining how - through processes of modernization and the material and cultural practices of recycling - the capital acquired its identity as a consummately "traditional" Chinese city." "From...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Berkeley :
University of California Press,
[2003]
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| Series: | Asia--local studies/global themes ;
8. |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Sample text Contributor biographical information |
| Summary: | "Madeleine Yue Dong offers the first comprehensive history of Republican Beijing, examining how - through processes of modernization and the material and cultural practices of recycling - the capital acquired its identity as a consummately "traditional" Chinese city." "From 1911 to 1937, the old hierarchies and walls of the imperial capital were steadily dismantled and new axioms of urban planning and social organization were instituted. Yet the construction of infrastructure and development of public spaces to encourage modern citizenship had less of an effect than intended. Beijing's residents were socially stratified and painfully poor; many did not behave like model modern citizens." "For residents of Beijing, the heart of city life lay in the labor-intensive activities of "recycling", a primary mode of cultural and material production and circulation that came to characterize Republican Beijing. An omnipresent process of recycling and re-use unified Beijing's fragmented and stratified markets into one circulation system. These material practices of recycling evoked the air of nostalgia that permeated daily life and animated representations of the city. Paradoxically, the "old Beijing" toward which this nostalgia was directed was not the imperial capital of the past but the living Republican city. Such nostalgia for the present, the author argues, was not an empty sentiment but an essential characteristic of Chinese modernity."--BOOK JACKET. |
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| Physical Description: | xxiii, 380 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 345-363) and index. |
| ISBN: | 0520230507 9780520230507 |