187) History of Shanghai: an academic course

History of Shanghai in the Modern Era
Instructor: Li Tiangang, Ph.D.

Course Description
This course focuses on the emergence of Shanghai as one of the largest and most dynamic cities in modern China through an exploration of the city's economic structure and development, as well as local politics, taking into account the influence of factors like population diversity, Western influence, and Shanghai's unique historical situation. Important geographical factors like early trade links and the role of treaty ports and foreign influence in the history of Shanghai will all be analyzed. This serves as an underpinning for discussion and analysis later in the course which focuses on the post-1949 era, the Opening and Reform Policy period, rapid economic development, contemporary politics, and Shanghai's position in modern China. The final sessions of the course are devoted to a discussion of the future of Shanghai.
Grading will be based on participation, weekly quizzes, and two papers.
Students must also participate in class trips.

Weekly class schedule:
1. The Names, Dates, and Places of Shanghai: Backgrounder (handout)
2. The Names, Dates, and Places of Shanghai: Bus Tour (handout)
3. The Origin of Shanghai (handout)
4. Shanghai to 1850 (handout)
5. 1850: The birth of a newspaper (Chapter 1)
6. 1875: Putting the city on the map (Chapter 2)
7. 1900: A year of fire and sword (Chapter 3)
8. 1925: A city in the streets (Chapter 4)
9. 1950: An in-between year (Chapter 5)
10. 1975: The East was Red (Chapter 6)
11. 2000: A city in a hurry (Chapter 7)
12. Conclusion: Ten theses on twenty-first-century Shanghai (pp. 124-133)
13. Conclusion: Ten theses on twenty-first-century Shanghai (pp. 133-140)
14. Speaker: Author Chen Danyan

Textbook:
Shanghai, 1850-2010: A History in Fragments
(Wasserstrom, Jeffery N., Routledge, 2008)

Other Readings:
Paul Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity: Wang Tao and Reform in Late Ching China (Cambridge, Mass. Council on East Asian Studies. Harvard University, 1987)

Bryna Goodman, Native Place, City and Nation: Regional Networks and Identities in
Shanghai: 1853-1937 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1995)

Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930-1945 (Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press, 1999)

Lu Hanchao, Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1999)

Barbara Mittler, A Newspaper for China? Power, Identity and China in China’s News Media (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Asia Council, 2004)

Sherman Cochran, ed. Inventing Nanjing Road: Commercial Culture in Shanghai, 1900-1945 (Ithaca, N. Y. East Asia Studies, Harvard University, 1999)

W. K. K. Chan, Merchants, Mandarins, and Modern Enterprise in Late Ching China (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1977)

Chao Kang, The Development of Cotton Textile Production in China( Cambridge, Harvard
University Press, 1977)

P. M. Coble, Jr. The Shanghai Capitalist and the Nationalist Government, 1927-1937 (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1980)

J. G. Lutz, China and the Christian College, 1850-1950 (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1971)

Timothy Brook (ed.), Civil Society in China (Armonk N. Y., M. E. Sharpe, 1997)

Ma Xiangbo and the Mind of Modern China, 1840-1939 (New York, M. E. Sharpe, 1996)

All About Shanghai: A Standard Guidebook (Shanghai University Press, 1934. Reprint,
Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1985)

Sterling Seagrave, The Soong Dynasty (N. Y., Harper & Row, 1985)

G. Lanning and S. Coupling, The History of Shanghai (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1921; Reprinted by Cheng Wen Publishing Company, Taipei, 1973)

Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origin of Cultural Revolution (N. Y. Oxford University Press,
1997)

Nien Cheng, Life and Death in Shanghai (New York: Penguin Books, 1988)

John K. Fairbank The United States and China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953)

John K. Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty
Ports, 1842-1854 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1953)

Betty Peh-Ti Wei, Shanghai: Crucible of Modern China (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1987)

Ernest O. Hauser, Shanghai: City for Sale (New York, Harcourt, Brace & Co. 1940)

Philip C. C. Huang, The Peasant Family and Rural Development in the Yangzi Delta, 1350-1988 (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1990)

George Dunne, Generation of Giants: The Story of the Jesuits in China in the Last Decade of the Ming Dynasty (University of Notre Dame Press, 1962)

Lucian W. Pye, China: An Introduction (Boston, Little, Brown & Co. 1984)

Jonathan Spence, Search for Modern China (W. W. Norton & Company, 2001)

Rhoads Murphy, Shanghai: Key to Modern China (Cambridge, Harvard University Press,
1953)

Linda Cooke Jonson, Shanghai: From Market Town to Treaty Port, 1074-1858 (Stanford,
Stanford University Press, 1995)