Water Lords presents the untold story of drinking water and its carriers in Beijing from the imperial Qing to the Republican period. It adds an ecological perspective to existing studies by foregrounding water as a distinctive force that shaped urban life in the realms of technology, society, and politics.
With this book, Lei Zhang makes a new and meaningful contribution to the field of Chinese environmental history by attending to water as a daily necessity and examining the previously neglected arrangements that provided urban denizens with predictable access to this critical resource.
Lei Zhang, Ph.D. (2017), Syracuse University, is an associate professor of history at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. His research interests focus on urban history, environmental history, and historical geography in modern China.
List of Figures and Tables
Introduction
1 The Structure of This Book
1 The Creation of the Water Regime, 1644–1900
1 Introduction
2 Bitter Sea: the Scarcity of Drinkable Water
3 Safe Water: the Security of Drinking Water
4 State Providers: Water Supply in the Inner City
5 Private Providers: Water Supply in the Outer City
6 The Regime of the Water Carriers
7 Conclusion
2 Foreign Well Water, 1900–1909
1 Drinking Water and the Boxer Rebellion
2 Japanese Well-Drilling in Beijing
3 Foreign Wells in the Inner City
4 Foreign Wells in the Outer City
5 Conclusion
3 New Water, Old Carriers, 1910–1923
1 The Foreign Proposal for Running Water
2 The Construction of Capital Waterworks
3 The Running Water Regime
4 The Foreign Well Water Regime
5 The Challenges of the Water Regime
5.1 The Internal Challenges
5.2 The Changing Nature of the Street
6 Conclusion
4 The Making of the Water Lords, 1924–1927
1 Organizing the Carriers’ Association
2 The Politics of the Shoulder Pole
3 The State and the Water Lords
4 The Residents and the Water Lords
5 Conclusion
5 Hygienic Water: Down with the Water Lords,1928–1937
1 Reorganizing the Carriers’ Association
2 Creating Hygienic Water
2.1 The Hygiene of Well Water
2.2 The Installation of Well Covers
2.3 The Construction of the Model Well
2.4 The Disinfection of Wells
2.5 Sanitizing the Water Carriers
3 Down with the Water Lords: the Municipal Government and the Carriers
4 Down with the Water Lords: The Residents and the Carriers
5 Conclusion
6 Epilogue: the Water Regime after 1937
1 The Water Regime under Japanese Rule
2 The Water Regime under Communist Rule
Bibliography
Index
Scholars of modern Chinese history, urban history, and history of technology, and it could be assigned for upper-level undergraduate or graduate-level seminars.