A Glimpse of Nanjing: Wang Huazhen, a Generation of Waterworks Engineers, and the City's New Village Development

This book is an accessible scholarly work on the history and culture of Nanjing. It takes as its starting point the renowned historical figure Wang Huzhen, a water-conservancy expert, and explores another side of his identity: a real estate tycoon. Drawing on extensive historical sources, the book traces the founding of the Leju Real Estate Company during Nanjing's “Golden Decade” of development and examines the properties it built. It also focuses on several of the company's “new villages,” investigating their history and restoring their former appearance through their architecture, the people connected to them, and the historical events surrounding them. To some extent, these accounts reveal the splendor of Nanjing during the Republican era.