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Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Introduction -- 1. Scythe and the City: The Measure of Death -- 2. Guilds, Charities, and the Community Management of Death -- 3. Funeral Companies and the Commoditization of the Dead Body -- 4. A Final Resting Place: From Burial Grounds to Modern Cemeteries -- 5. Foreign Cemeteries and the Colonial Space of Death -- 6. Invisible Deaths, Silent Deaths -- 7. Funerals and the Price of Death -- 8. The Cremated Body: From Social Curse to Political Rule -- 9. The Management of Death under Socialism -- Conclusion -- Abbreviations Used in the Notes -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

International audience ; This article examines the fate of Shanghai industries during the Civil War period in China. It argues that in spite of extreme difficulties in the later part of the war, Shanghai industries bounced back very quickly and reached early wartime levels within a year. Thereafter, a series of economic and political restrictions led to a slowdown, then a paralysis. The article is based on a large and unique survey of Shanghai industries published in October 1947, probably the peak of the economic recovery after the war. The data were processed in geographic information systems that the author implemented to examine what industry represented in the urban space, what its impact was, and how it defined the city of Shanghai. The author contends that issues of security more than economic factors determined the particular industrial geography in the city. The present study of Shanghai industries focuses on the Civil War period, a phase of acute social and economic turmoil from the perspective of spatial history. 1 Yet the selected time frame, as well as the nature of the major source on which this article relies, hardly allows for a study that incorporates a strong temporal dimension. The first part presents and examines the political and economic context of the postwar period in relation with the rebirth of Shanghai industries up to 1947. Hyperinflation in the following years just stifled this development. In the second part, I discuss the nature of the source and the methodology I used to process the collected data. This opens on a short analysis of the industrial structure and landscape in Shanghai. The last section explores the spatial dimensions of industries in the city for themselves but also in relation with various human and ecological factors, albeit tentatively. I argue that the late industrial development in Shanghai and the specific industrial structure produced a spatial arrangement that imposed a heavy industrial footprint throughout the city, much like the European cities of the first Industrial Revolution. None of the factors that drove factories and workshops out of central districts can be seen at work in the case of Shanghai due to considerations of safety and protection from war.

The takeover of the city by the People's Liberation Army in May 1949 marked the beginning of a process of transformation of all commercial and industrial companies in Shanghai. The funeral business companies represented a small sector, yet one that had great significance in everyday life. The ccp sought to control the private funeral companies almost as soon as it took over the city. The new authorities envisioned a radical transformation of the whole funeral business. While they exhibited remarkable efficiency in conducting the process of progressive elimination of many companies and placing the whole funeral business under strict guidance, the 'socialist transformation' resulted in a system riddled with inefficiency, mismanagement and mistrust. The ccp built on the experience it had acquired previously, but with Shanghai it also needed to adapt to the challenge of managing a large and complex metropolis. I argue that the ccp successfully enlisted the trade associations to implement its policy through means of ideological dominance, persuasion techniques, threat and sheer coercion. The short but strong protest of the former managers of companies during the Hundred Flowers Movement made visible the powerful political machine that drove their companies into public–private joint management, then full socialisation.

International audience ; Hutments--a term used to designate "beggars' villages," "straw-house villages" or more bluntly "slums"--became a standard feature of Shanghai's urban landscape in the early 1920s. Located in peripheral areas, they became a central object of concern by the authorities that governed the foreign settlements in the city. Over time, due to economic crisis and above all war, "hutments" slowly colonized the whole urban space and became a massive housing issue and a problematic historical legacy after 1949. This paper argues that hutments arose mostly from the turmoil of the Civil War period. Their nature changed little from the time of their appearance in the 1920s to the early 1950s. Yet, perceptions and policies over three major periods under study here varied significantly. They were strongly influenced by the discursive constructions and distorting lenses the local administrations formulated around issues of nuisance, public health, and city beautification. Each era carried over the concerns and prejudices of the previous period. Yet, each municipal institution also brought in new cultural and political postures that changed the overall discourse and treatment of hutment dwellers.

International audience ; Hutments--a term used to designate "beggars' villages," "straw-house villages" or more bluntly "slums"--became a standard feature of Shanghai's urban landscape in the early 1920s. Located in peripheral areas, they became a central object of concern by the authorities that governed the foreign settlements in the city. Over time, due to economic crisis and above all war, "hutments" slowly colonized the whole urban space and became a massive housing issue and a problematic historical legacy after 1949. This paper argues that hutments arose mostly from the turmoil of the Civil War period. Their nature changed little from the time of their appearance in the 1920s to the early 1950s. Yet, perceptions and policies over three major periods under study here varied significantly. They were strongly influenced by the discursive constructions and distorting lenses the local administrations formulated around issues of nuisance, public health, and city beautification. Each era carried over the concerns and prejudices of the previous period. Yet, each municipal institution also brought in new cultural and political postures that changed the overall discourse and treatment of hutment dwellers.

International audience ; Hutments--a term used to designate "beggars' villages," "straw-house villages" or more bluntly "slums"--became a standard feature of Shanghai's urban landscape in the early 1920s. Located in peripheral areas, they became a central object of concern by the authorities that governed the foreign settlements in the city. Over time, due to economic crisis and above all war, "hutments" slowly colonized the whole urban space and became a massive housing issue and a problematic historical legacy after 1949. This paper argues that hutments arose mostly from the turmoil of the Civil War period. Their nature changed little from the time of their appearance in the 1920s to the early 1950s. Yet, perceptions and policies over three major periods under study here varied significantly. They were strongly influenced by the discursive constructions and distorting lenses the local administrations formulated around issues of nuisance, public health, and city beautification. Each era carried over the concerns and prejudices of the previous period. Yet, each municipal institution also brought in new cultural and political postures that changed the overall discourse and treatment of hutment dwellers.

AbstractWar was a major aspect of Shanghai history in the first half of the twentieth century. Yet, because of the particular political and territorial divisions that segmented the city, war struck only in Chinese-administered areas. In this paper, I examine the fate of the Zhabei district, a booming industrious area that came under fire on three successive occasions. Whereas Zhabei could be construed as a success story—a rag-to-riches, swamp-to-urbanity trajectory—the three instances of military conflict had an increasingly devastating impact, from shaking, to stifling, to finally erase Zhabei from the urban landscape. This area of Shanghai experienced the first large-scale modern warfare in an urban setting. The 1927 skirmish established the pattern in which the civilian population came to be exposed to extreme forms of violence, was turned overnight into a refugee population, and lost all its goods and properties to bombing and fires.