Overview

Explores the complex history and legacy of elite wives, concubines, and daughters of warlords in twentieth-century China. In Women and Their Warlords, historian Kate Merkel-Hess examines the lives and personalities of the female relatives of the military rulers who governed regions of China from 1916 to 1949. Posing for candid photographs and sitting for interviews, these women did not merely advance male rulers' agendas. They advocated for social and political changes, gave voice to feminist ideas, and shaped how the public perceived them. As the first publicly political partners in modern China, the wives and concubines of Republican-era warlords changed how people viewed elite women's engagement in politics. Drawing on popular media sources, including magazine profiles and gossip column items, Merkel-Hess draws unexpected connections between militarism, domestic life, and state power in this insightful new account of gender and authority in twentieth-century China.

Full Product Details

9780226834306

Table of Contents

Reviews

“Analyzing the thick layers of power, militarism, and emotion, Merkel-Hess has provided us with fresh and important insights into China’s warlord era, ‘warlord culture,’ and its impact on China’s modernization. Impressive and timely, this book demonstrates with force and eloquence how gender was integral to these dramatic national changes.” * Louise Edwards, emeritus, University of New South Wales * “Not only does this book make important interjections into the field of gender history, but Merkel-Hess also asks us to rethink how we currently frame the political history of twentieth-century China. By including the voices of women as political actors, she reinstates agency to women in the making of state- and nation-building projects in ways never done before.” * Kelly Hammond, University of Arkansas *

Author Information

Kate Merkel-Hess is associate professor of history at Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of The Rural Modern: Reconstructing the Self and State in Republican China, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available