Contrary to pervasive conventional views that Shanghai was little more than a fishing village prior to its opening as a Western treaty port in 1843, this social history of Shanghai shows that the city was a major commercial port long before the arrival of the British. The author traces the development of Shanghai from market town in the Song dynasty and county seat in the Yuan period to a center of cotton production in the Ming era and important port city in the Qing dynasty.

By the early nineteenth century, Shanghai was among the twenty or so largest cities in China. Drawing on diverse Chinese materials - gazetteers, tariff manuals, and other internal sources - the author presents a China-centered perspective that stresses trends and continuities in the history of the Chinese city and situates the arrival of the West in the context of existing Chinese institutions, government policies, and commercial establishments.