| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Richard Belsky. Localities at the Center: Native Place, Space, and Power in Late Imperial Beijing. (Harvard East Asian Monographs, 258.) Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2005. Pp. xii, 318. $45.00.
Richard Belsky's book examines scholar-official huiguan (native-place lodges) in late nineteenth-century Beijing, focusing on their function as nodes of bidirectional interaction between the center and the regions. The author argues that native-place connections were incorporated both formally and informally into the day-to-day political process of Qing Beijing and must be considered constitutional elements within the late imperial political system.	1
The book demonstrates that the first native-place lodges were founded by scholar-officials in Beijing during the Ming Yongle period (early fifteenth century). They in turn inspired the establishment of merchant/handicraft huiguan. Huiguan were places for socializing, celebrating festivals, discussing events at home, and debating personal and regional affairs. While huiguan in late imperial China outside Beijing catered primarily to merchants, the majority of Beijing huiguan were scholar-official lodges, established by and maintained on behalf of China's national political elite, such as government officials and examination candidates, providing them with short-term residence. Beijing huiguan declined in the twentieth century, due to changes in the demographic groups served by the lodges, an intellectual turn against traditional social forms, and the moving of the capital to Nanjing after 1927.	. . .

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