Industrial Eden: A Chinese Capitalist Vision

The East Asian Studies Center at the University of Southern California presents a faculty book launch for Brett Sheehan's "Industrial Eden: A Chinese Capitalist Vision."

EASC would like to celebrate the book launch of Professor Brett Sheehan's newest publication entitled Industrial Eden: A Capitalist Vision (Harvard University Press, 2015). Georgia Mickey, Associate Professor of History at Cal Poly Pomona, will discuss the book and a light reception will follow.

Brett Sheehan is a Professor of Chinese History at the University of Southern California. He is also the author of Trust in Troubled Times: Money, Banking, and State-Society relations in Republican Tianjin, 1916-1937 (Harvard University Press, 2003), and numerous articles and book chapters. His latest publication is an illuminating study of the evolution of Chinese capitalism, chronicling the fortunes of the Song family of North China under five successive authoritarian governments. Headed initially by Song Chuandian, who became rich by exporting hairnets to Europe and America in the early twentieth century, the family built a thriving business against long odds of rural poverty and political chaos. Professor Sheehan shows how the Song family engaged in eclectic business practices that bore the imprint of both foreign and traditional Chinese influences. Businesspeople came to expect much from increasingly intrusive states, but the position of private capitalists remained tenuous no matter which government was in control. Although private business in China was closely linked to the state, it was neither a handmaiden to authoritarianism nor a natural ally of democracy.

Click here for ordering information and synopsis from Harvard University Press

RSVP here to attend.