Chinese medicine men : consumer culture in China and Southeast Asia

Select an Action

Title:

Chinese medicine men : consumer culture in China and Southeast Asia

Author:

Cochran, Sherman, 1940-

ISBN:

9780674021617

Personal Author:

Cochran, Sherman, 1940-

Publication Information:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, c2006.

Physical Description:

x, 242 p., [36] p. of plates : ill., maps, ports., facsims. ; 25 cm.

General Note:

Includes index.

Contents:

1. Consumer culture in Chinese history -- 2. Inventing imperial traditions and building olde shoppes -- 3. Advertising dreams -- 4. Capturing a national market -- 5. Crossing enemy lines -- 6. Crossing national borders -- 7. Agents of consumer culture.

Abstract:

"Sherman Cochran reconsiders the nature and role of consumer culture in the spread of cultural globalization. He moves beyond traditional debates over Western influence on non-Western cultures to examine the points where Chinese entrepreneurs and Chinese-owned businesses interacted with consumers. Focusing on the marketing of medicine, he shows how Chinese constructed consumer culture in China and Southeast Asia and extended it on the local, national, and transnational levels. Through the use of advertisements, photographs, and maps, he illustrates the visual forms that Chinese enterprises adopted and the far-flung markets they reached."

"Cochran brings to light enduring features of the Chinese experience with consumer culture. Surveying the period between the 1880s and the 1950s, he observes that Chinese businesses surpassed their Western counterparts in capturing Chinese and Southeast Asian sales of medicine in both peacetime and wartime. He provides revealing examples of Chinese entrepreneurs' dealings with Chinese and Japanese political and military leaders, particularly during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45. The history of Chinese medicine men in presocialist China, he suggests, has relevance for the twenty-first century because they achieved goals - constructing a consumer culture, competing with Western-based corporations, forming business-government alliances, capturing national and transnational markets - that their successors in contemporary China are currently seeking to attain."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject Term:

Consumer behavior -- China -- History.

Consumer behavior -- Southeast Asia -- History.

Popular culture -- China -- History.

Drugs -- Marketing.

Electronic Access:

Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/fy0613/2005043546.html

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168020395469	306.30951 C663C 2006	1	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

In this book, Sherman Cochran reconsiders the nature and role of consumer culture in the spread of cultural globalization. He moves beyond traditional debates over Western influence on non-Western cultures to examine the points where Chinese entrepreneurs and Chinese-owned businesses interacted with consumers. Focusing on the marketing of medicine, he shows how Chinese constructed consumer culture in China and Southeast Asia and extended it to local, national, and transnational levels. Through the use of advertisements, photographs, and maps, he illustrates the visual forms that Chinese enterprises adopted and the far-flung markets they reached.

Cochran brings to light enduring features of the Chinese experience with consumer culture. Surveying the period between the 1880s and the 1950s, he observes that Chinese businesses surpassed their Western counterparts in capturing Chinese and Southeast Asian sales of medicine in both peacetime and wartime. He provides revealing examples of Chinese entrepreneurs' dealings with Chinese and Japanese political and military leaders, particularly during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45. The history of Chinese medicine men in pre-socialist China, he suggests, has relevance for the twenty-first century because they achieved goals--constructing a consumer culture, competing with Western-based corporations, forming business-government alliances, capturing national and transnational markets--that their successors in contemporary China are currently seeking to attain.