Global Shanghai, 1850 2010

by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom

This book explores the play of international forces and international ideas about Shanghai, looking backward as far as its transformation into a subdivided treaty port in the 1840s, and looking forward to its upcoming hosting of China’s first World’s Fair, the 2010 Expo. As such, Global Shanghai is a lively and informative read for students and scholars of Chinese studies and urban studies and anyone interested in the history of Shanghai.

Genres: History, China

186 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2004

About the author

Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, a Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, is a modern Chinese social and cultural historian, with a strong interest in connecting China's past to its present and placing both into comparative and global perspective. He has taught and written about subjects ranging from gender to revolution, human rights to urban change.

His work has received funding from the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation.

Reviews

[Felix Giron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a valuable introduction to Shanghai, both in terms of getting a grip on the city's social and political changes over the last 150+ years and for its discussion of important imaginings of the city and how these interacted with events on the ground. Definitely a fine example of social history with splashes of deft writing and an intriguing selection of examples and anecdotes. I also appreciated Wasserstrom's introduction to and discussion of important sources such as Chinese and English language newspapers and magazines as well as full length books that spanned the primary-secondary source continuum. Very helpful for the amateur local history buff.

The chronicle-esque presentation, however, made getting into the book a bit of a challenge. I think I've been spoiled by a trained expectation for an embedded narrative (Shanghai's growth or it's renewal or it's globalization) within the majority of the historical work I read. This book was clearly trying to write against this more narratively constructed history given its problematizing of myths and imaginings of the city. Yet without that overarching narrative, I found getting into the book and keeping up reading momentum more difficult. Guess I will have to try more.

[Li Zheng · Rating 5 out of 5]

A creative segmentation of the history of Shanghai by a quater of century since 1975. Jeffery has become my favorite writer on the subject of Shanghai, arousing my deep interest in digging into what happened to Shanghai 100 years ago....great read.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few clunkers (using 'socialist' and 'communist' basically interchangeably, saying the Shanghai World Financial Center is nicknamed the 'can opener' rather than 'bottle opener'), but good voice and narrative.

[Jessica Zu · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting approach