Shanghai and the Edges of Empires

by Meng Yue

Even before the romanticized golden era of Shanghai in the 1930s, the famed Asian city was remarkable for its uniqueness and East-meets-West cosmopolitanism. Meng Yue analyzes a century-long shift of urbanity from China’s heartland to its shore. During the period between the decline of Jiangnan cities such as Suzhou and Yangzhou and Shanghai’s early twentieth-century rise, the overlapping cultural edges of a failing Chinese royal order and the encroachment of Western imperialists converged. Simultaneously appropriating and resisting imposing forces, Shanghai opened itself to unruly, subversive practices, becoming a crucible of creativity and modernism. 

Calling into question conventional ways of conceptualizing modernity, colonialism, and intercultural relations, Meng Yue examines such cultural practices as the work of the commercial press, street theater, and literary arts, and shows that what appear to be minor cultural changes often signal the presence of larger political and economic developments. Engaging theories of modernity and postcolonial and global cultural studies, Meng Yue reveals the paradoxical interdependence between imperial and imperialist histories and the retranslation of culture that characterized the most notable result of China’s urban relocation—the emergence of the international city of Shanghai. 

Meng Yue is assistant professor of East Asian languages and literature at the University of California, Irvine.

Genres: History, China

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Andre · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book started out pretty good and you can definitely say that it keeps its red line of seeing the Qing Empire as what it is, an empire, and not some poor victim of the British and the French and the like. It also treats Shanghai as a mixture place who is neither fully "Western" nor "Eastern." I can give it that. Furthermore this book has some pretty good and interesting points and did show some things in a light I didn't knew before.
But as anyone knowledgeable about reviews knows, there is a very big BUT in this. And indeed there are several. For one thing the book was written like some of the most cliché history books. It really drags a lot in many places which ultimately made me not finishing it and only reading about 75% or so. And this is not something that came late in the book, in fact in chapter 5 it became interesting again, but started in the introduction already. Back then I already though that despite how interesting it was I wished the introduction would have ended already and I could get to the main part. The first chapter was not much better. I get that it was about books and translations and some things were interesting, but it really was pretty dry most of the time and not necessarily what you would expect when the author talks about Shanghai's cultural side. The chapter about festivity and theaters was better, even though it took its sweet ass time to finally get to Shanghai. And sadly that is how it was for most parts of the book: It was dry, very dry.
However what I was most missing from this book that has Shanghai as the first part of its title was Shanghai. Except from some specialized topics, after the chapter on theaters, you don't actually see Shanghai in this, now concessions, no prostitutions, some books ok, but not much. Not much coming and going. Of those you saw at best glimpses. Actually it sometimes seemed as though Shanghai was presented as some sort of paradise or so.
The book is still ok over all, but it is not something I would recommend when you want to learn the basics and advanced things about Shanghai. This book seems to specialize so much that I think it serves best as a complementary book for readers who already are very knowledgeable about the city and late Qing China.