Isabella Jackson. Shaping Modern Shanghai: Colonialism in China’s Global City.

Abstract

In Shaping Modern Shanghai: Colonialism in China’s Global City, Isabella Jackson provides a comprehensive and careful history of the Shanghai Municipal Council, the government of the Shanghai International Settlement from 1863 to 1943. Created by British gunboat diplomacy in the First Opium War, this colonial concession operated as an autonomous local government elected by the taxpayers who owned property there. These businessmen stamped this concession government with their laissez faire economic philosophy. Their night watchman state featured low taxes, focused on infrastructure and policing, and kept regulations and assistance to the poor to a minimum. The one element of this local government that was not minimal was its prison, reportedly the largest in the world with more than 6,500 prisoners (120). Jackson briefly connects her analysis of this colonial outpost to debates over colonialism and globalization, but her main interest lies not in theorizing, but in offering a detailed institutional history of this local government. She examines each dimension of this municipal government, with chapters devoted to taxes, personnel, police, public health, and welfare. The analysis is based on a rich array of primary sources from the Shanghai Municipal Archives, newspapers, and memoirs in both English and Chinese. Jackson places this history in the larger context of the British Empire, tracing the connections to the other treaty ports in China, Hong Kong, India, and London.