Railroads and the Transformation of China

Elisabeth Köll

Enjoy 40% off

academic books on De Gruyter Brill *

Book

Railroads and the Transformation of China

Elisabeth Köll

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2019

Published by

View more publications by Harvard University Press

To Publisher Page

This book is in the series

Volume 52 | Harvard Studies in Business History

About this book

To convey modern China’s history and the forces driving its economic success, rail has no equal. From warlordism to Cultural Revolution, railroads suffered the country’s ills but persisted because they were exemplary institutions. Elisabeth Köll shows why they remain essential to the PRC’s technocratic economic model for China’s future.

Reviews

Köll…has done a rare thing, and done it magnificently. She has written a book that will inform historians and economists of China, but also curious new readers, who will get a brainful of China’s development from the last emperors to the current president-for-life, Xi Jinping… She is adept at showing the impact of railways on all aspects of Chinese life.
-- Jonathan Mirsky Times Higher Education

Köll’s book could lead to the emergence of a field of Chinese railroad studies just as the First Transcontinental Railroad led to the spatial magnification of America… Many topics we thought we knew—gender, machines, space, capitalism, social stratification—are connected and expanded through the fresh lens of railroad history.
-- Elya J. Zhang Business History Review

A sweeping account of the railways themselves as well as the impact of railway expansion on multiple dimensions of Chinese life…Wide-ranging and insightful.
-- Thomas G. Rawski China Quarterly

Required reading. It is an exhaustively sourced analysis of how geopolitics, business organization, and social relations influenced the development of one of China’s most important industries.
-- Matthew Lowenstein PRC History Review

Offers a powerful lens for understanding twentieth-century China…Köll’s work offers an important new perspective on the development of China’s rail network. The conclusions that she draws from the case of the Jin-Pu line speak broadly to scholars interested in infrastructure, technology, economy, and the power of the modern state.
-- Judd C. Kinzley Journal of Asian Studies

As the first comprehensive history of China’s railroad development in any language, Elisabeth Köll’s well-researched account addresses issues of interest to historians of technology…Not only offers perspectives from the non-Western world, underrepresented in the histories of transportation and mobility; it also highlights the deep history behind the managerial innovation and adaptability that prompted policy makers to place railroads at the heart of China’s One Belt, One Road initiative.
-- Ying Jia Tan Technology and Culture

Fills a long-standing gap… Valuing the railroads as one of the most important transportation tools, the Chinese are continuing to build their high-speed train networks. Thus, Köll’s book is a timely contribution to our understanding of modern China through the lens of the ongoing railway expansion.
-- Choice

So far the most comprehensive survey of China’s railroad history…The detailed studies relying on primary sources and in-depth discussions on how China’s railroads as institutions with wide social, economic, cultural, and political functions make this book the most reliable reference for anyone who is interested in understanding China in the modern times.
-- Xiansheng Tian Frontiers of History in China

Köll is clearly a master of archival diplomacy, for she has over time found materials accessible to no other foreign scholar, resulting in one of the richest studies in the evolution, management, finances, and labor politics of any Chinese enterprise. It gives nuanced and sustained attention to the intersection of business and politics that remains to this day a critical factor for the success or failure of business in China.
-- William C. Kirby, coauthor of Can China Lead? Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth

The history of Chinese railroads is a topic so important, it is surprising we have had to wait so long for a book like this—the most comprehensive history of Chinese railways in either Chinese or English. Based on previously unused archives and interviews, Elisabeth Köll gives readers a picture of the building and development of what has become one of the largest railway networks in the world. At the same time, Köll provides a new perspective on a broad sweep of Chinese history from the final years of the Qing dynasty, through war and revolution in the twentieth century, and into China’s economic rise since the 1980s.
-- Brett Sheehan, author of Industrial Eden: A Chinese Capitalist Vision

Topics

History Regional and National History Asia-Pacific

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Figures and Maps Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
A Note on Measures, Romanization, and Translations Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	1
I. Competing Interests and Railroad Construction
1. Technology and Semicolonial Ventures Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	19
2. Managing Transitions in the Early Republic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	53
II. Railroads in the Market and Social Space
3. Moving Goods in the Marketplace Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	91
4. Moving People, Transmitting Ideas Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	128
III. The Making and the Unmaking of the State
5. Professionalizing and Politicizing the Railroads Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	165
6. Crisis Management Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	193
IV. On Track to Socialism
7. Postwar Reorganization and Expansion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	223
8. Permanent Revolution and Continuous Reform Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	254
Conclusion: The Legacies of China’s Railroad System Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	290
Appendix A: Jin-Pu Railroad organization chart, ca. 1929 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	301
Appendix B: Revenue of major Chinese government railroad lines (thousand yuan per mile of line), 1915–1935 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	305
Appendix C: Freight transported by major Chinese government railroad lines (yuan per ton), 1915–1935 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	309
Appendix D: Number of passengers by ticket class, major Chinese government railroad lines, 1918–1935 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	313
Appendix E: Average miles per passenger journey by ticket class, major Chinese government railroad lines, 1918–1935 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	317
Appendix F: Freight designated for export (tons), shipped from Hankou to Guangzhou and onward to Hong Kong by train, October 18–December 31, 1937 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	321
Abbreviations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	323
Glossary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	325
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	329
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	385
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	389

Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

January 14, 2019

eBook ISBN:

9780674916418

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

Main content:

340

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674916418

eBook ISBN: 9780674916418

Audience(s) for this book

Professional and scholarly;

Railroads and the Transformation of China

Overview

About this book

Reviews

Topics

Table of contents

Bibliographic data