Republican Shanghai was a heterogeneous city with no central institutions. Yet somehow it functioned coherently. What held the city together? The authors argue that networks of middlemen with boundless connections provided the glue.

Jean C. Oi is William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics and was Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford. Her publications include Rural China Takes Off: Institutional Foundations of Economic Reform (1999). She is also co-editor, with Andrew Walder, of Property Rights and Economic Reform in China (Stanford, 1999). Nara Dillon is Assistant Professor of Political Studies at Bard College.