This interdisciplinary study brings history and art together in a definitive discussion of the Chinese woodblock print form of nianhua (literally New Year pictures), and an extraordinary account of the cultural life of rural North China during the late 19th to mid-20th century. Beginning with an overview of nianhua production, the study makes the critical point that rural China was embedded in a highly developed print culture. Through an analysis of the role of nianhua first in the home, and later in commercial and political theatres, Flath considers the relationship of the prints to the...