ABSTRACT
The eleventh-century drainage system of Ganzhou, Jiangxi province, offers a figure for the main arguments of Urban Life and Intellectual Crisis. As the likely creation of prefect Liu Yi (1017–1086), it instances the intersection of classical exegesis, civil engineering, and public health in the learning and governance of eleventh-century literati, and the perception of urban populations as both body physical and body politic. As a supremely effective drainage system, moreover, it stands as a reminder of the non-linearity of history and modernity. By preserving the historical connection between the text and the city, this intellectual history of the city demonstrates that defining elements of the cultural expression of modernity could exist and did exist in a non-industrial society.
