Yeh, Wen-hsin, “Shanghai Modernity: Commerce and Culture in A Republican City” (1997)

Title : “Shanghai Modernity: Commerce and Culture in A Republican City”

Author(s) : Yeh, Wen-hsin

Year : 1997

Type : Journal article

Subject : History

Keywords : social;culture;economy

Journal : China Quarterly

Number : 150

Start page : 375

End page : 394

Language:Name : English

Support : Print

Abstract : The emergence of modernity in Shanghai has been studied from two approaches. The Weberian approach looked at the interplay of Shanghai as an economic power and its dependence and influence on the state. Shanghai, for all its modernity and Western influence, failed to democratize China. The second approach looked at commerce and the new culture. Shanghai became the largest city in China because of Western technology and the promotion of national products through innovative advertising. A new image for women, the growth of a white-collar class, and the idealization of the nuclear family gave birth to a new urban middle-class culture. The new Shanghai was quite unlike any city in traditional China.