Brett Sheehan

A Chinese Capitalist Vision

Industrial Eden

This study of the evolution of Chinese capitalism chronicles the Song family of North China under five successive authoritarian governments. Brett Sheehan shows both foreign and Chinese influences on private business, which, although closely linked to the state, was neither a handmaiden to authoritarianism nor a natural ally of democracy.

Joseph Esherick

John Stewart Service

The World War II Despatches of John S. Service

Selections from Joseph Esherick, Ed., Lost Chance in China

Associate Professor of History Brett Sheehan

This timely book traces the development of banking and paper money in republican Tianjin in order to explore the creation of social trust in financial institutions. Framing the study around Bian Baimei, a conscientious branch manager of the Bank of China, Brett Sheehan analyzes the actions of bankers, officials, and local elites as they tried to overcome political and financial crises and instill trust in the banking system. After early failures in promoting trust, government authority as a regulator of the financial system gradually increased, peaking in 1935, when the state unified the money supply for the first time in several hundred years. Concurrently, when local elites proved unable to develop successful strategies to make people trust the system, their influence declined. The need for trust in increasingly complex financial arrangements redefined state-society relations, simultaneously enhancing state power and creating new constraints on the actions of both elites and governments. Trust in Troubled Times is a valuable new perspective on the economic, social, and political history of modern China.

Money, Banks, and State-society Relations in Republican Tianjin

Trust in Troubled Times

Brett Sheehan

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