| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Zwia Lipkin. Useless to the State: "Social Problems" and Social Engineering in Nationalist Nanjing, 1927–1937. (Harvard East Asian Monographs, number 259.) Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 2006. Pp. xii, 420. $49.95.
When the Nationalist government was inaugurated in Nanjing in 1927, it committed to boosting the image of the new capital by removing various "eyesores"—namely refugees, shantytowns, rickshaws, prostitutes, and beggars—from the city. Zwia Lipkin recounts in detail how the authorities tackled these social problems and how little was achieved by 1937.	1
To build Nanjing into a modern city comparable to London, Paris, or New York, many "spiritual" and "material" construction programs were introduced, and by 1937, the capital had been greatly transformed. Such development, however, turned Nanjing into a favorite destination for refugees. Despite its policy of expulsion, the government failed to stop refugees from settling permanently in Nanjing, and it started building public housing for the poor. By 1937, relocations of shanty households to designated places outside the city were enforced. In those shanties in less "conspicuous" areas in Nanjing, the government initiated projects to improve living conditions with some success.	2
In the eyes of Nanjing's modern elite, the rickshaw was a shameful sign of backwardness. Realizing the impossibility of eliminating the trade, the government was determined to "civilize" it by regulating its operation and the pullers' appearance and behavior; it also helped "humanize" the system by regulating the rickshaw rents, by fending off bus competition, and, with limited success, by organizing the pullers into cooperatives.	3
Prostitution was also seen as a sign of backwardness and a threat to social hygiene. Prostitutes were ordered to leave the trade and to be reformed, in rehabilitation centers, into "useful" citizens. The ban on prostitution, which was hastily implemented in 1928, failed because of continuous influx of refugees into Nanjing; a chronic lack of funds, which jeopardized the plans of building rehabilitation facilities; and poor cooperation between the municipal government and the local police.	4
By 1928, traditional favorable attitudes toward beggary had been replaced with negative perceptions of mendicants as a dangerous class and hence a social threat. The image-conscious government began moving beggars into asylums. This policy failed as more and more rural refugees flooded into Nanjing during the 1930s. The government eventually resorted to deportation and forced sheltering. By 1937, more asylums with improved facilities and reform-through-work plans were built, which helped boost the image of Nanjing in the eyes of foreigners.	. . .

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