Title The salt merchants of Tianjin : state-making and civil society in late Imperial China / Kwan Man Bun

Published Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press, [2001] ©2001

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Description 1 online resource (viii, 239 pages) : illustrations, maps Contents The City -- The Gabelle and Business -- The Household and the Law -- Merchant Culture -- Social Services -- Changing Times -- Shifting Politics -- The Crash Summary "In this the first detailed study in English of the mercantile activities and social role of Tianjin's salt merchants, Kwan Man Bun reveals how they helped stabilize the city and assumed many civic responsibilities, providing relief, charities, and other services to their fellow citizenry. Although these developments resemble the emergence of an idealized "public sphere" as in Europe, Kwan makes clear that Tianjin's social changes were not grounded on "rational discourse" but rather drew their strength and continuity from merchant networks based on exclusivity, wealth, education, and kinship Modernity, moreover, was not kind to this local articulation of Chinese "civil society." While the city endured the ravages of civil war and foreign invasions in the late Qing, both officials and intellectuals advocated the reassertion of state authority to re-create a strong and corporatist state capable of revitalizing the country. The forced bankruptcy of several leading salt merchants and the re-nationalization of their monopolies in 1911 signaled a fundamental shift in state-society relations, abrogating in the process centuries of "useful compromises" that had once integrated the two."--Jacket Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-227) and index Notes Print version record Subject Salt industry and trade -- Political aspects -- China -- Tianjin -- History Merchants -- Political activity -- China -- Tianjin -- History Government monopolies -- China -- Tianjin -- History Salt -- Taxation -- China -- Tianjin -- History Taxes, Farming of -- China -- Tianjin -- History BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Commerce. BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Marketing -- General. BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Sales & Selling -- General. HISTORY -- Asia -- China. Government monopolies Merchants -- Political activity Salt -- Taxation Taxes, Farming of Zouthandel. Belastingen. Staatsvorming. SUBJECT China -- History -- 1861-1912. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85024097 Subject China China -- Tianjin Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 9780824865009 0824865006

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