A review of The Householder Elite: Buddhist Activism in Shanghai, 1920-1956, by JAMES BROOKS JESSUP.  This dissertation studies the role that Shanghai’s elites played in constructing a new lay Buddhist identity in China from the 1920s to the 1950s. Jessup uses social history to examine the status of religion among Shanghai elites, investigating the social networks and the political and business connections within which such elites operated. This work brings together two distinct spheres of historical inquiry, and offers something to each: On the one hand, social histories of Republican...

A review of Organizing Shanghai’s Youth: Communist, Nationalist, and Collaborationist Strategies, 1920-1942, by KRISTIN MULREADY-STONE.  Kristin Mulready-Stone’s dissertation documents the organization and activities of party-affiliated youth organizations in Shanghai from 1920-1942. Consisting of six chapters plus an introduction and conclusion, the dissertation traces the ways in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Chinese Nationalist Party (GMD), and wartime collaborationist governments attempted to harness the energies of young Chinese activists from the May Fourth Movement...