This presentation is part of a larger project on the rhythms of urban life in the southern Chinese port city of Guangzhou (Canton) during the nineteenth century. By analyzing wet-season disasters (flooding and storms), in contrast to dry-season disasters (fires), the lecture hopes to convey a sense of the lived experience of city residents and to provide insight into both how life was changing over the course of this transformative century and how observers perceived these changes.

A sociocultural historian of early modern China, Prof. Steven B. Miles is head of the Division of Humanities at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the editor-in-chief of the journal, Late Imperial China. His most recent books are Chinese Diasporas: A Social History of Global Migration (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and Opportunity in Crisis: Cantonese Migrants and the State in Late Qing China (Harvard University Asia Center, 2021). His chapter, “Urbanization and Emigration in Coastal South China,” was recently published in volume 1 of The Cambridge History of Global Migrations.