Pierre Singaravélou tells the story of Tianjin's emergence as a transnational metropolis, arguing that the city's experience challenges conventional narratives of the origins of globalization.

Pierre Singaravélou is professor of history at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and a former British Academy Global Professor of History at King's College London.
Stephen W. Sawyer is the Ballantine-Leavitt Professor of History and director of the Center for Critical Democracy Studies at the American University of Paris.

Introduction. Ten Empires on the Head of Pin: A Situated History of Imperial Globalization
1. "Pandemonium": The Siege, the Battle, and the Sacking
2. The Invention of an International Government: Foreign Military Bureaucracy or Chinese Democracy by Petition?
3. "Bringing Order to Chaos": Police Practices, Legal Repression, and Social Protection
4. Regional Planning: Foreign Appropriations and Local Contestations
5. A Revolution in Hygiene? Public Health, Environmental Protection, and Population Control
6. The Salt of the City: Statebuilding and the Emergence of Civil Society
7. The Urban Scramble: Dividing the City, Battling in the Streets
8. A Government for Posterity? Retrocession of the City and Administrative Continuities
Conclusion. "Straddling East and West at the Turn of the Century": A Contribution to the History of Modernity in 1900
Appendix. Archives Around the Globe: A Note on Sources
Translator's Note
Notes
Bibliography
Index