The assignment is to compare the indigenous urban tradition of China

Orinigal Question: The assignment is to compare the indigenous urban tradition of China (as represented by a particular city like Hangzhou or Suzhou) with urban life in early 20th century Shanghai:  are the two essentially same, or did Shanghai represent something radically new?  If so, what was the nature of the difference, and how important was it?

Revise the following contents. 

1. Revise the form into Chicago, Add foodnotes. 

2. Moreover, merchants did NOT run Suzhou (like every Chinese city of any size, it was administered by scholar-officials appointed by the emperor) and Marme agrees with Brook that, at least in Ming, they were not capitalists in the Marxist sense.  You are of course free to argue otherwise but you can’t do so by attributing arguments to people which they have not made.

3. While much of the substance here is thus sound, you need to make the argument that both Suzhou and Shanghai represent an “other” China in a similar sense.  I suspect the simplest way to do this is present Shanghai entrepreneurs as less unalloyed capitalists than they are often portrayed as being.