Urbanization, De-urbanization and Recovery: Cities in 20th Century China

Urbanization, De-urbanization and Recovery: Cities in 20th Century China

Dr. Toby Lincoln - Postdoctoral Associate, Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Room 218, East Asia Library, Sterling Memorial Library (second floor) See map
120 High Street
New Haven, CT 6511

It is well understood that the spread of industrial modernity in China in the first half of the 20th century was primarily an urban phenomenon. However scholars have largely limited modernity’s influence to Shanghai and other major cities, without illustrating how similar processes impacted on the countryside. Concentrating on Wuxi, China’s largest inland industrial center, this paper will illustrate how the growth of an urban system led to a modern regional social geography in the Lower Yangzi delta. Moreover, I will propose that such a linear narrative of expanding modernity is too simplistic. By describing how the recovery of Wuxi after the Japanese invasion in 1937 was the result of similar social processes that were responsible for its development in the first place, I present a preliminary synthesis of how development and decline intertwine to explain patterns of historical change in modern China.

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China