The Warlords: Familial Relationships and Power in Modern China

FAIN: FA-251439-17

Kate Merkel-Hess
Penn State (University Park, PA 16802-1503)

Research and writing leading to publication of a book on the role of regional warlords in 20th-century Chinese politics and society.

The Warlords: Intimacy and Power in Modern China addresses the critical collapse of the Chinese Republic, founded in 1912, into rule by regional warlords. It challenges the typical story of the young republic’s disintegration and failure by examining the personal lives of the warlords and the ways their personal intimacies—of love, marriage, family, friendship, enmity, and patronage—were wrapped up in the politics of the day. It argues that factional warlords and their family members cultivated populist emotion and the intimacy of self and state through new political roles for women, new uses of media and technology, and state policies to foster civil society. Through its examinations of elite political life, The Warlords tells the story of how the political disarray of the warlord period created a space for a new politics of intimacy, shedding light on the ways that private life, intimacy, and sentiment became critical building blocks for modern China.

Associated Products

Women and Their Warlords: Domesticating Militarism in Modern China (Book)
Title: Women and Their Warlords: Domesticating Militarism in Modern China
Author: Kate Merkel-Hess
Abstract: In Women and Their Warlords, historian Kate Merkel-Hess examines the lives and personalities of the female relatives of the military rulers who governed regions of China from 1916 to 1949. Posing for candid photographs and sitting for interviews, these women did not merely advance male rulers’ agendas. They advocated for social and political changes, gave voice to feminist ideas, and shaped how the public perceived them. As the first publicly political partners in modern China, the wives and concubines of Republican-era warlords changed how people viewed elite women’s engagement in politics. Drawing on popular media sources, including magazine profiles and gossip column items, Merkel-Hess draws unexpected connections between militarism, domestic life, and state power in this insightful new account of gender and authority in twentieth-century China.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo220538750.html
Primary URL Description: U Chicago Press site.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780226834306
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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