This book is the first comprehensive work to study pre-1949 marketing history in China (1840-1949), a period of modernization under internal and external pressures. Providing readers with an eclectic lens to understand historical marketing and consumption, it primarily relies on a critical analysis of multiple historical sources including archives (government and corporate), Difangzhi (local gazetteers), Biji (personal notes) and memoirs, newspapers, and local Wenshi Ziliao (history and literature accounts).

The author demonstrates that pre-1949 Chinese marketing and consumption were neither mass-production-based nor flexible-specialization-based, but fragmentized business behavior, embedded in a socio-politically unstable market.

The volume will be useful for understanding the historical origins of marketing strategies, consumer behavior, and consumer culture in contemporary China. In addition, from a business and marketing perspective, this book offers a fresh understanding of Modern China that is sure to capture the attention of Sinologists and scholars in Asian studies.