Town and Country in China

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

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2. Introduction

   • David Faure, Tao Tao Liu

   Pages 1-16

3. Marvelling at the Wonders of the Metropolis: Perceptions of Seventeenth-Century Chinese Cities in the novel Xingshi yinyuan zhuan …

   • Daria Berg

   Pages 17-40

4. Town and Country Representation as Seen in Temple Fairs

   • Zhao Shiyu

   Pages 41-57

5. What Weber Did Not Know: Towns and Economic Development in Ming and Qing China

   • David Faure

   Pages 58-84

6. Village Identity in Rural North China: a Sense of Place in the Diary of Liu Dapeng

   • Henrietta Harrison

   Pages 85-106

7. Factories in the Countryside: the Industrial Workforce and Social Division in Nantong County, 1895–1937

   • Elisabeth Köll

   Pages 107-125

8. Urban Superiority, Modernity and Local Identity — a Think Piece on the Case of Shanghai

   • Hanchao Lu

   Pages 126-144

9. Emergent Civil Society in the Late Qing Dynasty: the Case of Suzhou

   • Ma Min

   Pages 145-165

10. Representing the City: Shanghai and its Maps

    • Catherine Vance Yeh

    Pages 166-202

11. Perceptions of City and Country in Modern Chinese Fiction in the Early Republican Era

    • Tao Tao Liu

    Pages 203-232

12. Redefining the Market Town through Festivals in South China

    • Helen F. Siu

    Pages 233-249

13. Back Matter

    Pages 250-260

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The transformation in Chinese social theory in the twentieth century placed the rural-urban divide at the centre of individual identity. In 1500, such distinctions were insignificant and it was the emergence of political reforms in the early 1920s and 1930s which separated cities and towns as agents of social change and encouraged a perception of rural backwardness. This interdisciplinary collection traces the development and distinctions between urban and rural life and the effect on the Chinese sense of identity from the sixteenth century to the present day. It provides a daunting example of the influence that political ideology may exert on an individual's sense of place.

• China
• identity
• novel
• social change
• social theory
• society
• transformation

• St Antony’s College, Oxford, UK

  David Faure

• Wadham College, Oxford, UK

  Tao Tao Liu

DARIA BERG Lecturer in Chinese Literature, University of Durham HENRIETTA HARRISON Lecturer in History, University of Leeds ELISABETH KÖLL Assistant Professor, Department of History, Case Western Reserve University HANCHAO LU Associate Professor, School of History, Technology and Society, Georgia Institute of Technology MA MIN Professor of History, Central China Normal University HELEN F. SIU Professor in Anthropology, Yale University ZHAO SHIYU Professor of History, Beijing Normal University CATHERINE VANCE YEH Institute of Chinese Studies, University of Heidelberg

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