Prewar Shanghai: casinos, brothels, Green Gang racketeers, narcotics syndicates, gun-runners, underground Communist assassins, Comitern secret agents. Frederic Wakeman's masterful study of the most colorful and corrupt city in the world at the time provides a panoramic view of the confrontation and collaboration between the Nationalist secret police and the Shanghai underworld....
Prewar Shanghai: casinos, brothels, Green Gang racketeers, narcotics syndicates, gun-runners, underground Communist assassins, Comitern secret agents. Frederic Wakeman's masterful study of the most colorful and corrupt city in the world at the time provides a panoramic view of the confrontation and collaboration between the Nationalist secret police and the Shanghai underworld. In detailing the life and politics of China's largest urban center during the Guomindang era, Wakeman covers an array of topics: the puritanical social controls implemented by the police; the regional differences that surfaced among Shanghai's Chinese, the influence of imperialism and Western-trained officials. Parts of this book read like a spy novel, with secret police, torture, assassination; and power struggles among the French, International Settlement, and Japanese consular police within Shanghai. Chiang Kai-shek wanted to prove that the Chinese could rule Shanghai and the country by themselves, rather than be exploited and dominated by foreign powers. His efforts to reclaim the crime-ridden city failed, partly because of the outbreak of war with Japan in 1937, but also because the Nationalist police force was itself corrupted by the city. Wakeman's exhaustively researched study is a major contribution to the study of the Nationalist regime and to modern Chinese urban history. It also shows that twentieth-century China has not been characterized by discontinuity, because autocratic government - whether Nationalist or Communist - has prevailed.
“Police Shanghai, 1927-1937” is really amazing. It shows us an extremely vivid and detailed view of the confrontation and collaboration between the Nationalist secret police and the Shanghai underworld. Through his masterful studies, Wakeman tried to prov...
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哲夫成城
人民出版社2011版
小海绵
人民出版社2011版
0 有用 常务副momo 2023-07-19 06:46:11 美国
读后失望略大于期望。但此书开创性的选题和Wakeman高超的写作技巧依然保证了其学术史地位。从此书发展出的Shanghai Badland和戴笠传记感觉reception却远没有想象中的好（可能选题not cool anymore，你无法想象在21世纪北美学界再用《洪业》的写法写民国史了）传统社会史写法，面面俱到，但我好奇的是如何能把public security作为一个流动性颇强的概念与上海警察... 读后失望略大于期望。但此书开创性的选题和Wakeman高超的写作技巧依然保证了其学术史地位。从此书发展出的Shanghai Badland和戴笠传记感觉reception却远没有想象中的好（可能选题not cool anymore，你无法想象在21世纪北美学界再用《洪业》的写法写民国史了）传统社会史写法，面面俱到，但我好奇的是如何能把public security作为一个流动性颇强的概念与上海警察不同时期的priority和职权范围进行比对讨论。结尾预告了红星照耀上海城，英文版未能成书终归是一大遗憾。 (展开)
0 有用 Love Takoyaki 2025-01-20 15:23:32 美国
从警察发展的角度来主要讨论南京十年的state building以及过程中如何处理复杂的state-society relationship 读起来十分的dense 需要知道的基本上都cover了 但中间有一小部分让我觉得和关于警察的主旨不搭 也有可能是我水平不行