在帝制中国的晚期，城市化是发展的核心。尽管学者们一致认为，它既没有引发韦伯式的城市自治，也没有引发哈贝马斯式的公民社会，但它的影响仍备受争议。本书认为，这种概念性僵局源于这样一个事实：看似连续不断的城市扩张实际上被种种“王朝式城市主义”打断了。作者认为，历史学家不应将城市化视为商业化发展的副产品，而应将其视为每个朝代的制度框架和文化趋势所塑造的过程。 这一特点在明朝尤为明显，其城市发展的性质和结果被证明是由明初设想的乡村理想所定义的。作者以长江流域的大都市南京为例，展示了在明朝时期，城市居民如何利用为农村制定的制度和文化资源，重塑城市的地位。“王朝式城市主义”的发现为这一领域提供了一条理解帝制中国晚期城市化发展的新途径，使真正有意义的比较城市史成为可能。

Urbanization was central to development in late imperial China. Yet its impact is heatedly debated, although scholars agree that it triggered neither Weberian urban autonomy nor Habermasian civil society. This book argues that this conceptual impasse derives from the fact that the seemingly continuous urban expansion was in fact punctuated by a wide variety of “dynastic urbanisms.” Historians should, the author contends, view urbanization not as an automatic by-product of commercial forces but as a process shaped by institutional frameworks and cultural trends in each dynasty. This characteristic is particularly evident in the Ming. As the empire grew increasingly urbanized, the gap between the early Ming valorization of the rural and late Ming reality infringed upon the livelihood and identity of urban residents. This contradiction went almost unremarked in court forums and discussions among elites, leaving its resolution to local initiatives and negotiations. Using Nanjing—a metropolis along the Yangzi River and onetime capital of the Ming—as a central case, the author demonstrates that, prompted by this unique form of urban-rural contradiction, the actions and creations of urban residents transformed the city on multiple levels: as an urban community, as a metropolitan region, as an imagined space, and, finally, as a discursive subject.