"Dazzled by the model of Japan’s Western-style constitutional government, Chinese officials and elite activists made plans to establish locally elected councils. By October 1911, government agencies had reported the establishment of about 5,000 councils. Throughout the period, data on self-government reforms collected from localities were compiled in provincial capitals, then collated, summarized, and archived in Beijing. Simultaneously, directives were being sent from the capital to the provinces. From this wealth of previously unexamined material, Roger R. Thompson draws a portrait-in-motion of the reforms. He demonstrates the energy and significance of the late-Qing local-self-government movement, while making a compelling case that it was separate from the well-studied phenomenon of provincial assemblies and constitutionalism in general."

During its fifty years of existence the People's Republic of China has seen dramatic changes, from the proclamation of the independent state through the period of the Communist Revolution, the Cultural Revolution, the Reform Period. These changes are analysed from the political, economic and social points of view, chllaenging accepted orthodoxy. Throughout, the emphasis is on change in the context of contemporary China, and as part of the Chinese Communist Party's search for paths to development.

The Routledge Handbook of Revolutionary China covers the evolution of Chinese society from the roots of the Republic of China in the early 1900s until the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. The chapters in this volume explain aspects of the process of revolution and how people adapted to the demands of the revolutionary situation. Exploring changes in political leadership, as well as transformation in culture, it compares the differences in experiences in urban and rural areas and contrasts rapid changes, such as the war with Japan and Communist ‘liberation’ with evolutionary developments, such as the gradual redefinition of public space. Taking a comprehensive approach, the themes covered include: • War, occupation and liberation • Religion and gender • Education, cities and travel. This is an essential resource for students and scholars of Modern China, Republican China, Revolutionary China and Chinese Politics.

"“Chinese people should consume Chinese products!” This slogan was the catchphrase of a movement in early twentieth-century China that sought to link consumption and nationalism by instilling a concept of China as a modern “nation” with its own “national products.” From fashions in clothing to food additives, from museums to department stores, from product fairs to advertising, this movement influenced all aspects of China’s burgeoning consumer culture. Anti-imperialist boycotts, commemorations of national humiliations, exhibitions of Chinese products, the vilification of treasonous consumers, and the promotion of Chinese captains of industry helped enforce nationalistic consumption and spread the message—patriotic Chinese bought goods made of Chinese materials by Chinese workers in factories owned and run by Chinese. In China Made, Karl Gerth argues that two key forces shaping the modern world—nationalism and consumerism—developed in tandem in China. Early in the twentieth century, nationalism branded every commodity as either “Chinese” or “foreign,” and consumer culture became the place where the notion of nationality was articulated, institutionalized, and practiced. Based on Chinese, Japanese, and English-language archives, magazines, newspapers, and books, this first exploration of the historical ties between nationalism and consumerism reinterprets fundamental aspects of modern Chinese history and suggests ways of discerning such ties in all modern nations."

Despite the rich heritage of numerous complaint systems in Chinese history, most Western as well as Chinese studies of one or more complaint systems in the PRC and earlier periods have paid little systematic attention to the origins, development, practices, impact, and nature of similar institutions in the longue durée of Chinese history. This book fills this gap, providing the reader with a comprehensive study of complaint systems in Chinese history from early times to the present. As such it will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Chinese history, politics and law.

Tian, or Heaven, had multiple meanings in early China. It had been used since the Western Zhou to indicate both the sky and the highest god, and later came to be regarded as a force driving the movement of the cosmos and as a home to deities and imaginary animals. By the Han dynasty, which saw an outpouring of visual materials depicting Heaven, the concept of Heaven encompassed an immortal realm to which humans could ascend after death. Using excavated materials, Lillian Tseng shows how Han artisans transformed various notions of Heaven—as the mandate, the fantasy, and the sky—into pictorial entities. The Han Heaven was not indicated by what the artisans looked at, but rather was suggested by what they looked into. Artisans attained the visibility of Heaven by appropriating and modifying related knowledge of cosmology, mythology, astronomy. Thus the depiction of Heaven in Han China reflected an interface of image and knowledge. By examining Heaven as depicted in ritual buildings, on household utensils, and in the embellishments of funerary settings, Tseng maintains that visibility can hold up a mirror to visuality; Heaven was culturally constructed and should be culturally reconstructed.

The Palace of Eternal Joy (Yongle gong) is a mammoth cult site dedicated to one of late imperial China’s most popular deities, Lu Dongbin. In one of the first book-length studies of a Chinese sacred site, Paul Katz focuses on the Palace’s role in the development of Lu's legend. This highly innovative approach takes into account the various "histories" of the Palace presented in different texts and surpasses previous scholarship by stressing the ways in which the site both reflected and produced cultural diversity. Katz breaks new ground by analyzing the texts in terms of the textuality--the processes by which they were produced, transmitted, and understood. The study begins with a detailed description of the Palace of Eternal Joy and a brief account of its history. The reader is then introduced to the cult of Lu Dongbin. Special consideration is given to various hagiographical traditions, particularly those that influenced the growth of his cult at Yongle. Throughout late imperial China, a growing number of worshipers (among them scholar-officials, Taoist priests, artisans, and dramatists) created an ever-burgeoning variety of images of Lu, ranging from a patron god of ink-makers and prostitutes to a member of that powerful yet rambunctious group of spirits known as the Eight Immortals. In this context, the author explores the Perfect Realization Taoist movement's adoption of Lu's cult during the Jin and Yuan dynasties and highlight the social and religious factors that led to Lu's immense popularity in north China during the late imperial era. Katz next looks at the four type of inscriptions found at the Palace (commemorative, official, hagiographical, and poetic) and identifies the Palace patrons who worshiped there and contributed to its growth. In the description and analysis of the Palace murals that follow, he divides these works into two types: those painted to provide a setting for, and even an object of, Taoist rituals performed at the Palace; and those used to instruct Perfect Realization Taoists and perhaps pilgrims. The final section traces the reception of the Palace texts among the people of Yongle and its environs. Here Katz examines the ways in which patrons tried to impose their representations of the Palace’s history and the cult of Lu Dongbin on other members of the community and assesses the extent to which these efforts succeeded. Images of the Immortal is richly informed by a wide reading in social, cultural, and literary theory as well as a thorough awareness of previous work in comparative and Chinese religion. Scholars of Taoism, Chinese popular religion, and art history will find it especially rewarding for its thought-provoking reinterpretation of an important religious figure and his cult.