Why Shanghai? : on engagement and empiricism in the field of Chinese urban historiography

The books under review here are two of the most important studies of Shanghai’s prewar history to be published in recent years. Their respective authors, Wen-Hsin Yeh of UCLA and Marie-Claire Bergère of École Normale Supérieure, can point to near-lifetimes of intricate engagement with the city on different levels. Each has contributed a trail of previous publications that have become standards in the field of Shanghai studies, at least in the West. In that sense, the two books can also be read as exceptionally erudite summations of decades of scholarship that have shaped the contours of the field, coupled with insightful concluding notes on what might become of Shanghai in the future