Much of Shanghai's importance in China's modern history lies in the city's transition from a metropolis of capitalist splendour to a bridgehead for socialist revolution. Following the Communist takeover in 1949, Shanghai underwent land reforms, nationalisation of major enterprises, and economic planning. This was accompanied by ideological training, domestic surveillance, and campaigns of party rectification. However, the continuation of the socialist revolution did not make a significant contribution to the city's development, at least in economic terms. Shanghai's contemporary modernity, following the reform and opening-up policy, arguably represents a return, at least in part, to its capitalist splendour before 1949.Footnote ¹ These developments appear to negate the city's early socialist past. Consequently, how to evaluate the Communist rule, along with its socialist revolution, in post-1949 Shanghai is worth scholarly inquiry. Unlike many scholars who pursue this inquiry by focusing on high politics, Hanchao Lu, a doyen of the study of Shanghai history, has taken on a grassroots perspective and examined the daily lives of a wide array of Shanghai urbanites.

As such, Lu's Shanghai Tai Chi: The Art of Being Ruled in Mao's China has contributed to a better understanding of how the Communist Party's policies unfolded on the ground in the Mao era. Existing studies have already demonstrated that the Party's top directives were subject to interpretations and modifications by local cadres.Footnote ² Lu's work goes a step further by exploring how people responded under the direct rule of these local policies and cadres. As this book reveals, their responses, though diverse and unorganised, subtly oscillated between compliance and defiance. Similar to tai chi, Chinese shadowboxing, which adeptly accommodates all attacks and counters them indirectly, the urban population of Shanghai, within a totalitarian political system that was designed for frugality and uniformity, ingeniously received the Party's policies and manipulated them to continue pursuing their material and spiritual well-being. Lu perceives this as an ‘art of being ruled’, forming the foundation for the city's post-reform development. After the loosening of Maoist isolation, the Shanghainese quickly embraced the market economy to pursue the once denounced bourgeois pleasure. The traditionalism depicted in Shanghai Tai Chi, which persisted in Shanghai during the Mao era, can be traced back to the early twentieth century, as evidenced in the author's previous work, Beyond the Neon Lights.Footnote ³

The current book is organised thematically. Part I focuses on the two primary targets of the socialist revolution: the capitalists (Chapter 1) and the intellectuals (Chapter 2). After a series of socialist campaigns in the 1950s, including the Five-Anti Campaign and the Socialist Nationalization Campaign, the former capitalists were subjected to the new Communist rule. Nevertheless, certain policies allowed some leeway for them to retain their comforts and privileges. These policies, among others, included the categorisation of nationalist capitalists who were considered allies of the People's Republic, the payment of fixed interest to the former capitalists after their businesses were nationalised, and, most importantly, the united front policy, which enabled moderate measures for those capitalists, leveraging their knowledge and resources for the Party's benefit. The author provides several examples to illustrate that the capitalists maintained or even improved their living standards under the Communist rule, at least before the Cultural Revolution. Similarly, some intellectuals preserved their bourgeois lifestyles under the united front policy. However, the intellectuals did not escape stigmatisation and persecution, as various socialist campaigns that were aimed at subjugating them were launched. Some individuals resisted actively, even resorting to suicide, while others, as the author shows, adopted strategies for sheer survival. Additionally, some local cadres deviated from the Party's anti-intellectualism and treated the intellectuals more leniently.

Part II shifts the focus to two groups of people who allegedly benefited the most from the Communist victory in 1949: the generation who were born and raised after 1949 (Chapter 3) and the women (Chapter 4). The former grew up in an era in which the publication of Western literature boomed, contrasting with the prevailing belief that the Mao era was characterised by cultural homogenisation and isolation. The Sino–Soviet alliance, the Communist theory regarding literature as a political weapon, and the moderate Party leaders in charge of cultural affairs provided incentives for the publication boom. This, in turn, contributed to the widespread underground circulation of literary works during the Cultural Revolution. Despite being deprived of formal education, the post-1949 youth ironically found themselves with the leisure and desire to read. While the youth benefited spiritually from Western literature, women reaped material benefits through increased employment opportunities in the neighbourhood industry—a result of the 1958–1960 Great Leap Forward. The neighbourhood industry outlasted the campaign and, as the author points out, its longevity resulted from the Party's need for cheap labour on the one hand and the women's political and economic motives, along with their lifestyle concerns, on the other.

Part III explores Shanghai's urban scenes during the Mao era through the lens of verdurisation (Chapter 5), foreign accounts of Shanghai (Chapter 6), and the food and clothing of that time (Chapter 7). Verdurisation was one of the few urban developments in Shanghai during the Mao era. While the Party understood it as a sign of modernisation and a step in nation-building, the Shanghainese saw it as a matter related to aesthetics, recreation, and, in some cases, a refuge from oppressive politics, as the author claims. Consequently, many Shanghainese indulged themselves in flower planting and home gardening, seen as a level of comfort that was noticeable to foreign visitors. What these visitors also noticed, as the author recounts their observations, is that the Shanghainese differed from those in other cities. This difference manifested in their mercantile spirit, politically incorrect expression, rosy imagination of the United States, and their approbation of foreign things. All these aspects reflect a split between the Party's uniformed ideology and the people's diverse mindsets, showcasing livelier daily lives than previously thought in the Mao era. What the Shanghainese wore and ate also testifies to this point. The uniformed clothing in the Mao era signified compliance with the regime, yet the Shanghainese developed their own clothing styles through various minor changes. Similarly, in a time of dearth and under a regime that demanded frugality, the Shanghainese still treated themselves to delicacies whenever possible. This attitude towards clothing and food, which was long upheld by the Shanghainese before the establishment of the People's Republic, shows that the people's yearning for freedom and individuality trumped the Party's intrusion and policing of their daily lives.

Utilising Shanghai municipal archives, interview materials, foreign accounts, and numerous other sources, Shanghai Tai Chi presents a mosaic of quotidian aspects of Shanghai daily life during the Mao era and delineates grassroots non-confrontational resistance. However, it leaves some questions unanswered. Notably, further elaboration is required on the implications of the resistance of the Shanghainese. Such ‘art of being ruled’ is not uncommon in human history; examples include the British working class in the long nineteenth century, peasants in early modern and revolutionary France, Islamic farmers in British Malaya, and military households in Ming China.Footnote ⁴ All these groups, too, embodied the art of being ruled when confronted with the state's imposition. How then is Shanghai's case distinct from the mentioned instances? If not, does it imply that there exists some quintessential uniformity in human behaviour across time and space? Another pertinent question revolves around Shanghai's socialist past. As the author repeatedly points out, the art of being ruled caused the Party's totalitarian rule to falter, paving the way for the city's re-embrace of the market economy. Does this suggest that Shanghai's socialist past is merely a fleeting episode in the city's seemingly irreversible path towards modernity? Or is it a legacy that still influences the city's present and future? To Hanchao Lu's credit, his book introduces these questions for future scholarship to explore. The current work is rich in vivid detail, a delight to read, and will be appreciated by both academics and non-specialist readers.