The Neighborhood - (Silk Roads) by Nianshen Song (Paperback)

About the Book

"This book is a centuries-spanning account of Xita, a neighborhood located in Shenyang, the largest city in Northeast China. By telling its story over four centuries, Nianshen Song shows how it has encapsulated China's metamorphosis from a Eurasian empire to a post-industrial consumerist society. He further charts the complex urbanization process through which Xita developed, and he also vividly illustrates the profound extent to which it has been shaped by multiethnic communities, including Tibetan, Manchu, Mongol, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, and Korean populations. Song begins his story with the establishment of Mukden/Shenyang as a Tibetan Buddhist center, focusing on the lives of the lamas who staffed its temples, exploring their relationships with the state and decline after the collapse of the Qing. Song then takes us to 1928 and the assassination of a Chinese warlord, through which he explores the history of the rival railway systems that crossed Xita and propelled the modernization of Shenyang. Next, he explores the era of Japanese colonization, examining the tourism industry as a critical element in Imperial Japan's ideological project, before turning to the experiences of ethnic Koreans and showing how Xita became a pillar of the Korean-Chinese community. He concludes by reflecting on the neighborhood's latest incarnation as an entertainment quarter by foreign and domestic capital. As Song shows in this micro-global history, much is contained in-and unlocked by-the history of Xita and its transformations"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

This masterful blend of history and urban storytelling brings to life the people and politics that shaped a single neighborhood in a Manchurian city across several centuries.

What can one neighborhood reveal about the making of a modern nation? The Neighborhood deciphers the unexpected significance of Xita, a half-square-mile quarter in Shenyang, in Northeast China. As the historian Nianshen Song shows, over nearly four centuries, Xita has been shaped and reshaped by empire, war, migration, and urban transformation. Remarkably, the history of this small area mirrors large-scale changes, including and especially China's metamorphosis from a multiethnic Eurasian empire to a postindustrial society.

Song begins with Xita's origins as a Qing-era Tibetan Buddhist center, following the lives of Mongol lamas and their imperial patrons. He tracks the neighborhood through the tumultuous twentieth century, when competing Russian and Japanese railway empires fueled its industrial growth, and Japanese colonizers turned it into a showcase for their imperial ambitions. Later, Xita became a vital enclave for Korea's diaspora before emerging in the post-Mao era as a neon-lit hub of commerce and entertainment.

A thoroughly researched microhistory, The Neighborhood reveals how global forces play out in everyday spaces. By studying the emperors, warlords, merchants, laborers, and migrants who shaped Xita, Song presents a captivating and original perspective for understanding China's past--not from the top down, but through the streets and people who lived it.

Review Quotes

"The Neighborhood tells the story of Xita and its iconic West Stupa over centuries and generations. Rejecting traditional periodization and national frameworks, Song weaves an insightful and eye-opening history of Xita through religious networks, dynastic conflict, interimperial rivalries, and transnational mobilities."-- "Kate McDonald, author of Placing Empire"

"By unfolding the past of one small corner of a city in the PRC's northeast, this remarkable book illuminates the very nature of China as fluid, rather than contained by conventional boundaries. This is microhistory at its best--deeply researched, with compelling personal stories, sophisticated analysis, and a sweeping chronology--all anchored in an unassuming place made vibrant and meaningful by Song's writing."-- "Ruth Rogaski, author of Knowing Manchuria"

About the Author

Nianshen Song is professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, China. He is the author of Making Borders in Modern East Asia: The Tumen River Demarcation, 1881-1919.