This article examines the relationship between the official careers of the Upper-Three-Banner Booi and their economic conditions, by focusing on the Wanggiya family since the Daoguang reign. The Wanggiya family was renowned for its high level of literacy, yet the glory of the family was concentrated in a single lineage. Theoretically, each member had the duty to run errands for the emperors, but different factors could have an impact on a Booi’s career, including personal capacities, types of errands, and family legacies. Although the young generation of Booi in the late Qing could find it difficult to secure an errand post, the lineal descendants of Lingqing managed to enter the Imperial Household Department and other government sectors through different pathways, like errand posts, examination, donation, and inheritance, thanks to the rich political and financial resources left by their elder male members. Although these particular Booi enjoyed a wider range of career pathways than the early Qing Booi, the overstaffed late Qing court could only offer limited opportunities. Hence, securing a substantial position became a key issue for these Booi to develop their official careers.

The silting up of the Huangpu River at Woosung near Shanghai had been reported by the local press as troublesome to steam ships’ access to Shanghai by the 1870s. The delays caused by the silting became one of the most vexing problems faced by the Shanghai mercantile community, city administrators, and diplomatic authorities, both Chinese and foreign. The necessity of dredging broached by shipping companies and underwriters, was, however, questioned not only by the Chinese administration, but also by foreign consular authorities of Britain and the U.S. in Beijing. To refute the official opposition to dredging, the Shanghai merchants had asked help from George Arnold Escher and Johannis de Rijke, two Dutch engineers hired by the Japanese government, to make a survey of the Woosung Inner Bar in 1875. This article argues that there existed, as seen in this case, a transnational mercantile class that actively engaged in the formation of hydraulic knowledge and the profession of hydrographical engineering in modern East Asia.

No more research was conducted on how the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party reacted to the Great Famine of 1960 once it could no longer deny the existence of the famine. This article uses the conditions in Gansu Province in 1961 as a case study to analyze the issue. The Northwest Bureau Conference was held in Lanzhou in December 1960. During the half-year before and after this meeting the Central Government, the Northwest Bureau, the Gansu Provincial Committee, and each level of government all took useful actions to deal with and then stop the Great Famine. The famine relief actions of governments at all levels were critical and effective. This article discusses the political ecology of the Communist Party in the famine relief during the period from October 1960 to March 1961.

The article discusses the fin de siècle thinking of Schopenhauer, Eduard von Hartmann, and Nietzsche in late Qing China. Schopenhauer’s theory of blind life force catered to both naturalists and symbolists, and found a sympathetic ear in Wang Guowei, who founded the first “modernist” aesthetics in China. The article also revises the accepted view of the alleged disjunction in Wang’s intellectual career. Wang was among the earliest translators of experimental psychology in China. Yet both Kant and Wilhelm Wundt averred that the higher activities of the mind can only be studied through cultural history, and that was the path Wang pursued. Hartmann’s doctrine of human evolution toward mankind’s collective nirvana finds echoes in Zhang Taiyan’s “co-evolution” thesis. Nietzsche deems the Superman a remedy for the decadent nineteenth century, a view echoed in China by Lu Xun out of context. The impact of fin de siècle thinking was mediated by Japan.