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Book synopsis

A visitor to Beijing in 1900, Chinese or foreign, would have been struck by the great number of native-place lodges serving the needs of scholars and officials from the provinces. What were these native-place lodges? How did they develop over time? How did they fit into and shape Beijing's urban ecology? How did they further native-place ties? In answering these questions, the author considers how native-place ties functioned as channels of communication between China's provinces and the political center; how sojourners to the capital used native-place ties to create solidarity within their communities of fellow provincials and within the class of scholar-officials as a whole; how the state co-opted these ties as a means of maintaining order within the city and controlling the imperial bureaucracy; how native-place ties transformed the urban landscape and social structure of the city; and how these functions were refashioned in the decades of political innovation that closed the Qing period. Native-place lodges are often cited as an example of the particularistic ties that characterized traditional China and worked against the emergence of a modern state based on loyalty to the nation. The author argues that by fostering awareness of membership in an elite group, the native-place lodges generated a sense of belonging to a nation that furthered the reforms undertaken in the early twentieth century.

Book details

Book category Books in English Humanities History Regional & national history

• Full title: Localities at the Center
• Author: Richard Belsky
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardback
• Number of pages: 334
• EAN: 9780674019560
• ISBN: 0674019563
• ID: 04634783
• Publisher: Harvard University, Asia Center
• Weight: 624 g
• Dimensions: 174 × 237 × 30 mm
• Date of publishing: 01. January 2006

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