Shanghai, 1927-1937: Municipal Power, Locality, and Modernization (review)

Reviews 109 given the narrative more human interest. But Harrell nevertheless is successful in the course she has chosen, while clearly documenting her proposition that the experience ofthe Chinese students in Japan has significance for the history ofcontemporary China. Harrell presents a very convincing argument in a very compact and tightly written book that is fascinating to read. She does indeed lead us to an awareness that this brief decade of the influx of Chinese students into Japan was important, for it was a period of change in Chinese political attitudes toward the Qing government ; the Chinese students saw the need to strengthen China to prevent not only domination by the West but also by Japan. The seeds of change were sown, and the results had a multiplier effect that was unanticipated by those who planned the first programs. Finally, it is always a great joy to find the rare phenomenon of research in English on educational ventures between two Asian peoples. Victor Kobayashi University of Hawai'i M Christian Henriot. Shanghai, 1927-1937: Municipal Power, Locality, and Modernization. Translated by Noël Castelino. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 1993. xiii, 288 pp. Hardcover $42.00. Within the past five or six years, chances are that out of every three China scholars one encounters, at least one will be working on some aspect of Shanghai. There is little doubt that along with focal points ofinterpretation such as deconstruction, discourse, and gender, the concentration of skilled scholars in the Shanghai area will one day be studied as a subgenre of Sinology ofthe late 1980s. In this sea of Shanghai studies, Christian Henriot's new work is an important example ofmeticulous scholarship. Henriot has focused on the Shanghai area for over a dozen years, and this book arises from his dissertation, which was published as Shanghai 1927-1937: Élites locales et modernisation dans la Chine nationalistehy the Écoles des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris, 1991). Shanghai, 1927-1937: Municipal Power, Locality, and Modernization is a soofHawai 'i Presscial-historical analysis ofmunicipal administration and leadership in Shanghai during the Nanjing decade. Avoiding a linear narrative, the book is structured around four areas of analysis. (1) The first two chapters address the historical de- 110 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 1995 velopment ofthe Shanghai municipality and the emergence oflegal structures. The difficulties of a Chinese administrative zone in the midst of two foreign zones and the tensions of dealing with a growth in national consolidation ofpower is recognized as the central problématique. (2) The next three chapters explore the vicissitudes ofvarying leadership factions, from local notables to GMD officials, in relation to the attempts to consolidate municipal leadership. Fluid changes in administrative leadership positions are examined, and the Japanese 1932 attack on Shanghai is detailed as a challenge that actually strengthened local administration . The examination ofmunicipal staffincludes a prosopographical approach analyzing data that includes region, education, and personal linkages for about two thousand leaders. This was based on a collaborative project, the results of which were published in 1985.1 (3) The following two chapters present a detailed survey ofmunicipal financing and urban planning, particularly the "Greater Shanghai Project" that began implementation in 1929. (4) Having elucidated the structures and behavior of the Shanghai municipality, the remaining chapters and the conclusion concentrate on the issue ofhow well they worked in the cases of education and public health programs as indications ofmodernizing trends. Henriot concludes that the Western perception of the Nanjing decade as one where modernization was overwhelmed by a corrupt GMD government needs a finer articulation because the environment was more complex. He maintains that, in particular, Western-trained administrators and some strong municipal leaders attempted aggressive public programs, with some positive good obtained. The complexities of Chinese relationships, Henriot asserts, infused all strata ofleaders, within GMD circles, and among the local notables and municipal administrators: Essential as it is, the party/state distinction is just not enough since all it does is distinguish between two major entities that were themselves highly complex. It is necessary to probe deeper and examine the ways in which events unfolded at successive levels ofthese two structures (for example, in...