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In a book that is part microhistory, part memoir, Jie Li salvages intimate recollections by successive generations of inhabitants of two vibrant, culturally mixed Shanghai alleyways. These voices include workers, intellectuals, Communists, Nationalists, foreigners, compradors, wives, concubines, and children who witnessed spectacles so full of farce and pathos they could only be whispered as secret histories. Exploring three dimensions of private life--territories, artifacts, and gossip--Li re-creates the sounds, smells, look, and feel of home over a tumultuous century.
List of contents
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Dramatis Personae
Introduction
1. Foothold
Foundations and Original Residents (1910s–1940s)
After the Communist Revolution (1950s–1970s)
A New Generation Comes of Age (1970s–1990s)
Alleyway Homes as a Microhistorical Stage
2. Haven
Domestic Artifacts as Historical Witnesses
Home Searches: The Cultural Revolution in the Alleyway
Petty Urbanites: Reinventing Privacy in the Reform Era
Thrift, Bricolage, and Nostalgia for the Alleyway
3. Gossip
A Cultural Genealogy of Shanghai Gossip
Alleyway Space as a Milieu for Gossip
Several Lifetimes to a Life: Women on the Margins
A Room of Her Own: The Whispers of Aunt Duckweed
4. Demolition
Demolition Micropolitics
Ruins of the Old Neighborhood
Nail Houses and Rustless Bolts
Coda
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the author
Jie Li is assistant professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.
Summary
In a book that is part microhistory, part memoir, Jie Li salvages intimate recollections by successive generations of inhabitants of two vibrant, culturally mixed Shanghai alleyways. These voices include workers, intellectuals, Communists, Nationalists, foreigners, compradors, wives, concubines, and children who witnessed spectacles so full of farce and pathos they could only be whispered as secret histories. Exploring three dimensions of private life--territories, artifacts, and gossip--Li re-creates the sounds, smells, look, and feel of home over a tumultuous century.
