''Civilizing Chengdu: Chinese Urban Reform, 1895–1937'' is a 2000 non-fiction book by Kristin Eileen Stapleton (Chinese name: 司昆仑 ''Sī Kūnlún''), published by

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

. The majority of the book covers how the

Late Qing reforms Late Qing reforms (), commonly known as New Policies of the late Qing dynasty (), or New Deal of the late Qing dynasty, simply referred to as New Policies, were a series of cultural, economic, educational, military, diplomatic, and political refo ...

and the City Administration Movement, the first from the

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

and covering three chapters and the latter of the early

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

and covering one chapter, changed Chengdu.Belsky, p. 329. These efforts were done to develop a city perceived as backwards.Dray-Novey, p. 246. Hanchao Lu () of the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public university, public research university and Institute of technology (United States), institute of technology in Atlanta, ...

stated that this was the first English-language "analytical "biography"" of Chengdu.Lu, p. 949.

Background

Gazeteers, guidebooks, and newspapers from times after 1900 and covering the historical era were used for sourcing. The author used sources stored in the First Historical Archive of China, Second Historical Archive of China, Sichuan's provincial archives, and Chengdu's prefectural archives.

Release

In April 2020, the Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House () published the Chinese version as "新政之后：警察、军阀与文明进程中的成都 (1895-1937)".

Reception

Richard Belsky of

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

of the

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

stated that the work is a "must read" for people interested in the book's subject. He also praised the focus on Chengdu, a city smaller than others often covered in literature.Belsky, p. 329. Alison Dray-Novey of College of Notre Dame (now

Notre Dame of Maryland University Notre Dame of Maryland University is a private Catholic university in Baltimore, Maryland. NDMU offers certificate, undergraduate, and graduate programs for women and men. History The Roman Catholic academic/educational religious congregation ...

) argued that the content was "interesting" for people studying the history of urban areas. Chang-tai Hung stated that the work is "splendid" and that it was "clearly grounded in extensive archival and library research".Hung, p. 1008.

References

* * * *

Notes

External links

*
Civilizing Chengdu
' - Available at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

*
Civilizing Chengdu
' - Available at

JSTOR JSTOR ( ; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources founded in 1994. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary source ...