Kristin Stapleton, The Modern City in Asia
Kristin Stapleton, The Modern City in Asia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022
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1The Modern City in Asia is a short, didactic book written by Kristin Stapleton – an American specialist of modern Chinese history. Stapleton’s case rejects the nostalgic historiographical tradition dating back to the colonial era concerning the founding of modern cities in Asia: indeed, Stapleton argues that the conquering West has so far attached far too much weight to the role of figures like Wellesley, Raffles or Lutyens. Rather, the origin of cities in today’s globalised Asia should be considered not so much from the colonizer’s point of view, as from the Asian elite’s “subaltern” perspective (“entrepreneurs and activists [who] took advantage of the new significance of the city [...] to pursue a wide variety of goals”, p. 1). These elites have played a key role in the process of urban development in Asia – a territory which, according to the author whose comparative approach rejects traditional “area studies”, stretches from Japan to Pakistan.
2The Asian continent has a long tradition of urban planning; significantly the dramatic changes brought about by the new structures created by the Europeans upon their arrival were financed by subaltern indigenous collaborators of the new colonial or semi-colonial regimes. The greater role played by this subaltern group made it possible for them to be actively involved in city life – acquiring both increased prestige and expertise. This took place not only at the local level during the colonial period, but also at the provincial and central level once the European empires fell. The role of this group is still paramount today, Stapleton claims, as it is an integral part of the newly educated middle class who are gaining access to new 'global' forms of consumption, power and culture.
3Globalisation has given modern Asian cities renewed importance, and the dramatic and radical social transformations that this part of the world has witnessed have naturally inspired a revival of research in urban history. Over the past decade, prestigious reference books have been published and have attempted a description of the transformations that have taken place in the urban Asian world. They have drawn on the history of ideas rather than traditional urban geography. This short book tries to draw upon this recent knowledge.
4This 68-page book is divided into six chapters of about ten pages each. Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India and the Philippines are given considerable emphasis, as shown by the substantial bibliography – one-fifth of the book. Therefore, the book offers an interesting perspective on themes as varied and innovative as pollution, slums – a topic in relation to which Stapleton cites the recently demised American sociologist who pioneered this type of research, Mike Davis – or the YMCA youth movement. It is worth noting that a quarter of the works cited deals with India, and half of the bibliography deals with publications dating back less than ten years ago.
5The introduction defines the idea of urban modernity, together with the Atlantic and Western model that influenced colonised or semi-colonised Asia in the 20th century. Stapleton also presents the 21st century concept of “Asianisation” of the “Global South”. The first chapter of the monograph focuses on the creation of the urban executive councils of the late 19th century, which managed infrastructure, police, development, culture etc. It also examines the cosmopolitan character and racial-social segregation of the period of European imperialism. In the second chapter of her book, Stapleton looks at the process of urban innovation in non-colonised China and interwar Japan. The third chapter of the monograph identifies the links between ethnic-religious ideology – including the spread of the YMCA movement in Asian cities, and Mao’s and Gandhi’s rejection of the city, part of Asian anti-colonial nationalism – and the impact of the Second World War on Asian cities. The fourth chapter analyses the changes that occurred during the Cold War: the development of capital cities, the ethnic-cultural standardisation of Asian nations under American or Soviet influence, and the emergence of the authoritarian Singaporean model, which the author highlights as the actual laboratory for the future transformation of Asian cities.
6The last chapter insists on the place of Asian cities in the world today – also within what is known as the “Global South”. It encourages reflection on concepts such as the Chinese “realist” model with its Orwellian tendency – which showed its limits during the pandemic – and on the more “liberal” Singaporean model. The author refers to the “Marxist” critique denouncing the inhuman aspect of that global urbanisation that has become the prevailing paradigm in South Asia. It would seem that Stapleton’s theoretical choice here oscillates between the sociological (“social-constructivist”) critique of an “imagined (Asian urban) community” and “postcolonial” theory. The latter seems to be dearer to her as the methodological tool for undermining the dominant Euro-American model.
7This book is in any case a very honest review of the history of urban planning in Asia. Stapleton’s “history of ideas” prism, with which the author nevertheless admits being unfamiliar, seems to her to be the best tool for understanding the evolution of the new Asian megacity. Stapleton starts some very promising lines of inquiry; in particular the relevance of the 1900s as a pivotal moment in the history of cities in Asia (“this [...] period witnessed both an unprecedented obsession with cities and the growth of city-centered politics in Asia”, p. 1); or the fact that the concept of the modern city in colonised Asia matured during the 1920s, thus anticipating the idea of the “nation” by a generation. However, mentioning fundamental figures, such as the Indian administrator and economist Romesh Chunder Dutt or American architect Louis Kahn in relation to South Asia, would have been a useful addition.
8In the final analysis, Stapleton’s book, published in the Cambridge Elements Series, will be an asset to historians of modern Asia, world historians and urban historians, on how concepts travelled worldwide during and after the imperial era, and during the Cold War. This short book will be useful for master’s degree seminars or even for undergraduate classes if supplemented by texts that illustrate the course skilfully.
References
Electronic reference
Thierry Di Costanzo, “Kristin Stapleton, The Modern City in Asia”, Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique [Online], XXIX-1 | 2024, Online since 29 March 2024, connection on 15 December 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/11804; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/rfcb.11804
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