China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation. By Karl Gerth. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003. xv + 445 PP. Illustrations, photographs, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth, $50.00. ISBN 0-674-01214-3.

2004 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-375
Author(s):  
Arif Dirlik
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
The Creation

China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation. By Karl Gerth. [Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2003. 445 pp. ISBN 0-674-01214-3.]

2004 ◽  
Vol 179 ◽  
pp. 840-841
Author(s):  
Zhou Xun
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Chinese Nationalism ◽  
Primary Means ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Modern Nation State

According to Karl Gerth, the author of China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation, this newly published monograph is “a study of nation-making through consumerism” (p. 5). Gerth claims that central to his argument is the pervasive tension between consumerism and nationalism. Such tension, he suggests, was an integral part of the creation of China as a modern nation (p. 1), and a critical examination therefore allows readers to connect all levels of Chinese society (p. 5). To further his argument, Gerth explains that in early 20th-century China an emerging consumer culture defined and spread modern Chinese nationalism. At the same time, the growing conceptualization of China as a ‘nation’ with its own ‘national products’ influenced and shaped its consumer culture (p. 3). By creating a “nationalised consumer culture,” the author argues, “notions of ‘nationality’ and China as a ‘modern’ nation-state were articulated, institutionalised, and practiced.” In Gerth's words again, “the consumption of commodities defined by the concept of nationality not only helped to create the very idea of ‘modern China’ but also became a primary means by which people in China began to conceptualise themselves as citizens of a modern nation” (p. 3).

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