This volume comes out of a conference held at Stanford University on social networks in Republican Shanghai. Most of the authors of the ten chapters have published at least one major work on the history of Shanghai or a related subject. For them, therefore, the conference was to some extent a revisiting of their previous work with a focus on social networks and state building.
The authors ask how Republican Shanghai, a city “at the crossroads of empires,” divided among three often-contending administrations, not only endured but prospered. The consensus is that, in large measure, the answer is to be found in the powerful cement of social networks based largely on interpersonal connections.
The volume is organized in three parts in addition to an introduction by the two editors. The first part covers three of the city's well-known personalities: Huang Yanpei (1878–1965), a provincial minister who fervently advocated “vocational education”...
