Shanghai and the Edges of EmpiresEven before the romanticized golden era of Shanghai in the 1930s, the famed Asian city was remarkable for its uniqueness and East meets West cosmopolitanism. Meng Yue analyzes a century long shift of urbanity from Chinas heartland to its shore. During the period between the decline of Jiangnan cities such as Suzhou and Yangzhou and Shanghais early twentieth century rise, the overlapping cultural edges of a failing Chinese royal order and the