The Chaotic Epoch: Southwestern Chinese Warlords and Modernity, 1910-1938

Although southwestern China was chaotic politically and economically in the warlord era (1910-1938), Sichuanese warlords became primary actors in many municipal modernization projects. This thesis argues that Sichuanese warlords\u27 engagement with new Republican values and modernity manifested itself in many modernization projects and promoted a new idea of the government\u27s role in society and in the creation of public spaces. By redefining warlordism outside of a national narrative, this thesis reframes Sichuanese warlords not as \u22stagnators\u22 of national progress or simply a residual effect of the collapse of the Qing dynasty, but at times as creators, promoters, and sometimes advocates of modernity. Although many warlord municipal modernization projects were not successful in Sichuan, they display how new Republican values did not need nationalized administrative implementation or direct foreign influence, but rather these values grew organically out of new ideas of modernity, echoing similar changes in many parts of Chinese society