The Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie 1911–1937

This study explores the astonishing growth of Western-style industry in Shanghai.

Marie-Claire Bergère (Author)

9780521110716, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 7 May 2009

372 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.55 kg

Favoured by the exceptional economic circumstances of the First World War and the immediate post-war years, Chinese entrepreneurs made their mark by modernising and establishing themselves as a business bourgeoisie. Focusing upon Shanghai, this study explores the astonishing growth of Western-style industry, commerce and banking during the Republic's first decade. Marie-Claire Bergere analyses how the bourgeoisie gradually constituted itself as a specific and coherent social class, with its own ideology and type of political action, built upon family solidarities and regional links; and she examines the relations between this class and the State, the Revolution and the West.

Prologues
Part I. Preludes
Part II. The Emergence of a Bourgeois Class
Part III. The Bourgeoisie and the Quest for Power and Modernity
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Series List.

Subject Areas: General & world history [HBG]