Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance

This important volume affords a panoramic view of local elites during the dramatic changes of late imperial and Republic China. Eleven specialists present fresh, detailed studies of subjects ranging from cultivated upper gentry to twentieth-century militarists, from wealthy urban merchants to village leaders. In the introduction and conclusion the editors reassess the pioneering gentry studies of the 1960s, draw comparisons to elites in Europe, and suggest new ways of looking at the top people in Chinese local social systems. Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance lays the foundation for future discussions of Chinese elites and provides a solid introduction for non-specialists.

Essays are by Stephen C. Averill, Lenore Barkan, Lynda S. Bell, Timothy Brook, Prasenjit Duara, Edward A. McCord, William T. Rowe, Keith Schoppa, David Strand, Rubie S. Watson, and Madeleine Zelin.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1990.

Joseph W. Esherick is Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego and author of The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (California, 1987). Mary Backus Rankin is the author of Elite Activism and Political Transformation in China (1986).

LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PREFACE
CONTRIBUTORS

Introduction
Joseph W. Esherick and Mary Backus Rankin

PART 1: LATE IMPERIAL ELITES
1. Family Continuity and Cultural Hegemony:
The Gentry of Ningbo, 1368-1911
Timothy Brook
2. Success Stories: Lineage and Elite Status in Hanyang County,
Hubei, c. 1368- 1949
William T. Rowe
3. The Rise and Fall of the Fu-Rong Salt-Yard Elite:
Merchant Dominance in Late Qing China
Madeleine Zelin

PART II: LOCAL ELITES IN TRANSITION
4. From Comprador to County Magnate:
Bourgeois Practice in the Wuxi County Silk Industry
Lynda S. Bell
5. Power, Legitimacy, and Symbol:
Local Elites and the Jute Creek Embankment Case
R. Keith Schoppal
6. Local Military Power and Elite Formation:
The Liu Family of Xingyi County, Guizhou
Edward A. McCord

PART III: REPUBLICAN ELITES AND POLITICAL POWER
7. Patterns of Power: Forty Years of
Elite Politics in a Chinese County
Lenore Barkan
8. Mediation, Representation, and Repression: Local Elites in 1920s Beijing
David Strand

PART IV: VILLAGE ELITES AND REVOLUTION
9. Corporate Property and Local Leadership in the
Pearl River Delta, 1898-1941
Rubie S. Watson
10. Elites and the Structures of Authority in the
Villages of North China, 1900-1949
Prasenjit Duara
11. Local Elites and Communist Revolution in the
Jiangxi Hill Country
Stephen C. Averill

Concluding Remarks
Mary Backus Rankin and joseph W. Esherick

NOTES
GLOSSARY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX