Material Type  

 학위논문

 

0016932312

Date and Time of Latest Transaction  

20240214100441

ISBN  

9798379717193

DDC  

950

Author  

Yang, Shengyu.

Title/Author  

Business Magnates, Public Philanthropists, and Art Connoisseurs: Suzhou Gentry and the Nationalization of Lijin in Qing China - [electronic resource]

Publish Info  

[S.l.] : Princeton University., 2023

Publish Info  

Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2023

Material Info  

1 online resource(290 p.)

General Note  

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 84-12, Section: A.

General Note  

Advisor: Bian, He.

학위논문주기  

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Princeton University, 2023.

Restrictions on Access Note  

This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.

Abstracts/Etc  

요약This dissertation bridges the gap of modern Chinese history divided by the Taiping wars. The first three chapters cover the consolidation of commercial taxes and charitable organizations by the central state, which culminated in the reinvention of the lijin merchant funds for public finance in the 1850s. The middle chapter on upper-gentry activism during the Taiping wars details how elites altered national policies in diplomacy as well as military deployment. From Shanghai, upper-gentry elites persuaded the central state to request foreign powers to intervene in the Chinese civil war. Elites also lured the Hunan army commanded by Li Hongzhang to Shanghai with lijin revenue. The final two chapters document how upper-gentry elites drew from both recent experiences and long-established practices to achieve the gentrification of lijin by perpetuating war-time contingencies for the long-term successes of their families. By formalizing lijin as a replacement of land tax in the post-war reconstruction period, upper-gentry elites shifted the fiscal burden from landowners to everyday consumers.At the core of this dissertation is a prosopography on a group of upper-gentry elites associated with Suzhou. Having earned the official status with exam degrees and/or office purchase, their experience as refugees in Shanghai during the Taiping wars enabled new plans for the future: some left officialdom and became indulged in collecting art; some continued to work for the public sector and benefited from social networks forged during the war; some built new business empires and expanded them to charitable organizations; some got lost in the economic downturn after the war and had to live on borrowing.By joining individual experiences with long-term structural changes, this study revises prevalent conclusions on post-Taiping China as either in devolution or restoration. Challenges from the Taiping rebels and foreign imperialists in the new era were simultaneously opportunities for the elites and the state to bound more firmly. This trusting and interdependent relationship between the emperor and his ministers in and out of office, I argue, is the crucial condition to understand Qing history, which also hints why everything seemed different in the twentieth century. 

Subject Added Entry-Topical Term  

Asian history.

Subject Added Entry-Topical Term  

Modern history.

Index Term-Uncontrolled  

Charitable organizations

Index Term-Uncontrolled  

Fiscal policy

Index Term-Uncontrolled  

Guilds

Index Term-Uncontrolled  

Jiangsu

Index Term-Uncontrolled  

Lijin

Index Term-Uncontrolled  

Taxation

Added Entry-Corporate Name  

Princeton University East Asian Studies

Host Item Entry  

Dissertations Abstracts International. 84-12A.

Host Item Entry  

Dissertation Abstract International

Electronic Location and Access  

로그인을 한후 보실 수 있는 자료입니다.

소장사항  

202402 2024

Control Number  

joongbu:639566