One industry, two Chinas : silk filatures and peasant-family production in Wuxi County, 1865-1937 / Lynda S. Bell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bell, Lynda Schaefer.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Silk industry--China--Xishan Shi--History.

Silk industry.

History.

China--Economic policy.

China.

Economic policy.

China--Commerce--History.

Commerce.

China--Xishan Shi.

Physical Description:

xvi, 290 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, [1999]

Summary:

This book is a detailed study of the modern silk industry in a county in the Yangzi delta. It reopens and restructures the grand debate on Chinese economic development, combining quantitative analysis of both industry and agriculture with study of how local politics, class, culture, and gender also shaped the modern Chinese economy.

Contents:

Note on Wuxi County's Administrative Boundaries, Commercial Districts, and Size xv

1. Introduction: A Tale of Two Chinas 1

2. Markets and Power in the Late Imperial Era 14

3. Why Wuxi? Merchant Competition and the Changing Contours of Yangzi Delta Silk Production 33

4. Public Sphere or Private Interest? Defending the Wuxi Cocoon Trade 65

5. Investors at Risk in the Wuxi Filature Industry 89

6. Women in Sericulture, or How Gendered Labor (Re-)Shaped Peasant-Family Production 109

7. Imparting Modernity: Women and the Politics of Silk-Industry Reform 132

8. Success at Last? Bourgeois Practice and State Intervention Under the Nationalists 154

9. Conclusion: Peasants, Industry, and the State 179

C. Data on Investment Patterns in Wuxi Silk Filatures 214.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [257]-271) and index.

ISBN:

0804729980

OCLC:

40869644