Through a study of the readership of the most popular commercial daily newspaper in China during the early twentieth century, Reading Shenbao investigates ideas of nationalism, consumerism and individuality, looking at the relationship between advertising, modern lifestyles and changing social attitudes in China as it underwent modernization.

WEIPIN TSAI is a historian of modern China, specializing in political, regional trading and socio-economic interests from the late Qing to the Republican period, including globalization and colonial influence in China, and consumerism in daily life. She is currently a lecturer in the History Department of Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.