The peer - reviewed monograph by Wang Di, a Sichuan native working in the United States, is his first book. It is written on the basis of a dissertation defended by the author in 1998.

The period of the late XIX - early XX centuries in Western Sinology is called "premodern" ("preceding modernity") - the time of the extinction of the old China at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the birth of a new one in the first decades of the Republic. There are no exact dates for the beginning and end of this period. Scientists choose dates and events that are convenient for their subject matter. Wang Di begins his research in the 1870s, when economic life began to improve after the Taiping Rebellion, and ends in the late 1930s, when the municipal government was established in Chengdu after the revolution of 1925-1927.

The history of cities is a special area of Chinese historiography. (A classic of this genre is Jacques Gernet's description of the daily life of Hangzhou. See: Gernet J. Daily life in China on the eve of the Mongolian invasion, 1250-1276. Stanford, 1968.) Wang Di complains that the interest of modern history specialists is limited to port cities, especially Shanghai. Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, which has been considered inaccessible since Tang times, has preserved traditional culture to a much greater extent than the port cities. Chengdu during the Three Kingdoms period was the capital of the Shu Principality, while Tang was one of the most prosperous cities in China. The transition from Ming to Qing resulted in 50 years of war (1622-1681) and heavy destruction for Sichuan. Under Qian Long (1736-1795), Sichuan's economy and culture began to gradually recover. Under the Taiping, the province was not too badly affected, and daily life here improved quickly. Until the end of Qing, Chengdu had little or no Western influence. In 1910, there were 335,000 inhabitants and 68,000 households. Travelers invariably noted the beauty and prosperity of the city, the beneficence of its climate.

A cursory glance at the book of the excellent writer of everyday life Van Di can be mistaken for a collection of physiological essays. However, upon careful study, it becomes clear that for Van Di-a scientist, the description of urban life is not an end in itself, he wants to understand the nature and essence of subsequent changes in society for the urban philistine - the main character of the book.

"Street culture" for the author is a concept that includes everything that can be found on the streets: shop signs, consumer goods that can be purchased right here, performances, celebrations, rituals performed in the city, as well as all the ways to earn a living. "Street culture" coincides, of course, with folk culture, but in the integrity with which it is interpreted by Van Di, it differs from folklore.

In old Chinese sources, it is difficult to find information about the daily life of citizens. The author of the book divides the materials he uses into four groups: official documents, modern scientific literature, both Chinese and Western, personal records of people who visited or lived in Chengdu, and, finally, the most important group - the mass media of the period under study. Wang Di attracted the entire local press, and reproductions from Chengdu-based newspapers and magazines illustrated the book. He also actively uses fiction, in particular the novel "The Family" by Ba Jin. Wang Di learned a lot of valuable information from "bamboo poetry" - a special genre of local folklore.

The book consists of three parts: the first of them provides a detailed reconstruction of traditional street life as a public space, and the next two describe the changes in this life in the process of social and political reforms.

Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. XIV, 355 p., il.

Van Di. Chengdu street culture. Public space, urban inhabitants and local politics, 1870-1930. Stanford: Ed. Stanford University, 2003. XIV, 355 p., ill.

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Van Dee sees the street as a collection of different spaces. First of all, it was a single commercial space, i.e. a permanent market. In addition, the street is a space of entertainment: residents of the city gathered in markets, squares, in front of temples, on street corners, at exits from bridges. The street served as a stage for theatrical performances that attracted large audiences for little money. Many troupes even preferred to play outside. Money for organizing performances was collected by communities, neighbors, and guilds.

The socialized space of the streets was tearooms. Van Di describes them with great love, recreating the smallest details of local life and customs. He sees the ongoing processes in the tea industry as a kind of litmus test for understanding changes in society. Teahouse life was supported by" idlers "- scientists, retired officials, landlords and other representatives of the elite and" busy " - those who had to work to live. Teahouses were places not only for recreation, but also for work, where deals were made, contracts were signed, and a place where you could talk about politics. For the author of the book, tea houses are a prototype of a quasi-civil society.

A street is a ceremonial space. "Any individual, any social group or organization could take part in activities on the street without seeking permission from local authorities" (p. 49). Ritual ceremonies are of three types: those performed by families and relatives, neighbors, and communities.

From describing "spaces", Wang Di goes on to create portraits of characters who lived on the streets of Chengdu - peddlers, artisans, storytellers, actors, vagabonds, fortune tellers, magicians, sellers of Chinese medicines, geomancers, acrobats.

Wang considers the reforms of the beginning of the last century to be a "revolution from above", when new politicians who visited the West and Japan began to rebuild the life of Chinese cities in a Western manner. Through economic and cultural changes, new models of public space were supposed to be created. The old way of life had to be replaced by a new one. The scientist writes little about the reform and revolutionary movements, for him, as a humanist and a connoisseur of patriarchal life, one important question is: did the average person live better after modernization? Ignoring the main actors of reforms and revolutions is a principled position of Wang Di, but it is hardly legitimate from a historical point of view.

Although the reforms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries affected the whole of China, street life in Chengdu did not change as quickly as in the coastal cities. The author writes in detail about how each of the designated "street culture" spaces was reformed. First of all, the reformers began to struggle with the street as a commercial space. The special "Center for Trade and Industry Development" spent a lot of effort on equipping new retail areas with large stores. Another successful task of the reformers was the creation of public parks in Chengdu, and in the cultural field, they focused on maintaining and developing theater companies that work in the genre of local musical drama. Attempts were made to create Western-style troupes, build movie theaters, rebuild teahouses, and develop sports.

The most significant changes in the material life of the city's citizens occurred due to the penetration of various, high-quality and cheap foreign goods into the Chengdu market. Bicycles imported in huge quantities have changed the urban environment. The city's infrastructure was improved: water, electricity, and telephone lines were added.

A separate topic of the book is the position of women in society before and after the reforms. Until 1911, Manchus and Chinese women did not intersect in any way: the Manchus lived separately, in a "small" city surrounded by a wall. The clothing, demeanor, and lifestyle of women of both nationalities varied greatly. Han elite women denounced the freedom of the Manchus (p. 90). Poor and rich Chinese women lived differently: some women were forced to work. Van Dee details the thriving business of flower sellers and midwives. All the women were taken out on the street only for holidays and ceremonies. The new model of social behavior has greatly changed the lives of city women. They began to appear in places where previously they were not allowed - in teahouses and theaters. Schools and shops were set up for women, and public lectures were given. There was a ladies ' fashion on the Western model. The emancipation of women has also changed the traditional forms of prostitution, and it has become more diverse and accessible.

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The new public space was created by destroying the old one. An increase in the population led to the demolition or relocation of city walls, and new commercial real estate appeared in place of old buildings.

The most important change in Chengdu's urban life at the beginning of the last century is the creation of a regular police force based on a model borrowed from Japan. From the very beginning, the police made an attempt to bring street life under strict control. Traffic regulations were developed, and the authorities tried to control the commercial use of the streets. The police monitored the observance of public hygiene, fought hooligans, gambling and opium smoking, and beggars on the streets. Flophouses and workhouses for the homeless were created on the American model. The police controlled all public gatherings, introduced licensing of theater companies, and especially monitored tea shops. Bans were used to combat superstitions and harmful cults. With the help of the police, the elite managed to achieve that at the beginning of the XX century. A new public order was established in Chengdu. But for people who earned their living on the street, it was unsuitable, and the street became an arena of struggle.

The politicization of the street, which began in the late 19th century, began to increase rapidly after the Xinhai Revolution. In the years leading up to the revolution, there was little organized protest, but many different forms of everyday resistance. Conflict became part of the daily life of the street, which led to the transformation of street culture into street politics. Social inequality deepened, and some areas of Chengdu became "beggars' quarters." There were contradictions between the natives of the city and immigrants, between Han and Manchu families who have lived here for many years. They began to treat Tibetan merchants and peasants who came to the city badly.

The first event, which was attended by almost all residents of Chengdu, was a movement to protect the railways from the Qing government's attempts to nationalize them. The suppression of the protests led to bloodshed in September 1911. After that, the chaos became permanent. Early Republican Chengdu was a city of soldiers that was controlled by one or another army of militarists. The war spilled out into the streets. In 1917, Chengdu was severely destroyed twice, killing more than 10 thousand people, and many fled. Banditry flourished. "In the early years of the Republic, individuals in Chengdu gradually began to come together to participate in collective actions, which forever changed not only street life, but also the city's political culture as a whole," notes Wang Di (p.244). Under the conditions of military terror, citizens tried to organize self-defense, for which each street allocated men for protection at night. So the old neighborly relations were restored. The men belonged to secret fraternities. Especially popular was the "Brotherhood of the Sword", known since the late Qing. Student unrest has become more frequent. After all the upheavals, Chengdu came to a systematic city government that no longer assumed self-regulation of street life.

As Van Di notes, despite its historical isolation, the city was peaceful. The social transformations that were launched from above did not benefit the city and its residents, including because they did not meet the real needs of citizens, did not make their lives better. A modernized city has better roads, more opportunities for work and recreation, but isn't this price too high for the loss of human lives and the violation of the established way of life for centuries?

The anti-reformist orientation of the reviewed book is obvious. It is a pity that the author did not offer an alternative picture of Chinese history since the end of the XIX century - a society that escaped Western influence and revolutionary upheavals... The life of the average person during the reform period is similar in different countries. Many pages make you feel like you've experienced it all yourself. What is worth, for example, the information that after the beginning of the reforms, the public suddenly began to steal dishes in tea shops.

Translated into Russian and provided with good comments, Van Di's book could easily find a wide readership in our country.

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