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Jeffrey WasserstromOn my list of books I felt I needed to have a source book with documents produced by thinkers and activists of the time with as wide a variety of Chinese voices possible. New Ghosts, Old Dreams: Chinese Rebel Voices is a series of collections of speeches and writings of the time, pulled together by Geremie Barmé and Linda Jaivin. It’s an unusually creative and varied contribution. It brings in... (Source)
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The mass protests that erupted in China during the spring of 1989 were not confined to Beijing and Shanghai. Cities and towns across the great breadth of China were engulfed by demonstrations, which differed regionally in content and tone: the complaints and protest actions in prosperous Fuijan Province on the south China coast were somewhat different from those in Manchuria or inland Xi'an or the country towns of Hunan. The variety of the reactions is a barometer of the political and economic climate in contemporary China. In this book, Western China specialists who were on the spot that... more The mass protests that erupted in China during the spring of 1989 were not confined to Beijing and Shanghai. Cities and towns across the great breadth of China were engulfed by demonstrations, which differed regionally in content and tone: the complaints and protest actions in prosperous Fuijan Province on the south China coast were somewhat different from those in Manchuria or inland Xi'an or the country towns of Hunan. The variety of the reactions is a barometer of the political and economic climate in contemporary China. In this book, Western China specialists who were on the spot that spring describe and analyze the upsurges of protest that erupted around them. less Jeffrey WasserstromWhat is important about this book is that while within China there has been an effort of forced amnesia by the government, in the West there has often been a very selective remembering of 1989. Things that are sometimes left out are the complexity of the movement and the importance of the role of workers. What often also gets forgotten is how many other cities were affected by large-scale... (Source)
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"We want neither gods nor emperors", went the words from the Chinese version of The Internationale. Students sang the old socialist song as they gathered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in the Spring of 1989. Craig Calhoun, a sociologist who witnessed the monumental event, offers a vivid, carefully crafted analysis of the student movement, its complex leadership, its eventual suppression, and its continuing legacy. more "We want neither gods nor emperors", went the words from the Chinese version of The Internationale. Students sang the old socialist song as they gathered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in the Spring of 1989. Craig Calhoun, a sociologist who witnessed the monumental event, offers a vivid, carefully crafted analysis of the student movement, its complex leadership, its eventual suppression, and its continuing legacy. less Jeffrey WasserstromYes, I like that about it. It’s sometimes forgotten that that was one of the songs that the students rallied to. Calhoun is now director of the London School of Economics. He was an outsider to Chinese studies, but he was in China at the time of the protests in 1989, teaching a course on social movements. He brought a freshness to thinking about what was going on that sometimes people who are... (Source)
Elizabeth PerryThis is a rather interesting book by Craig Calhoun. He is a sociologist, not a China specialist. But he happened to be in Beijing at the time of the 1989 uprising and, unlike most China scholars, he was smart enough to stop other things he was doing and go out and study this remarkable movement that was unfolding around him. So he went out and conducted some guerrilla surveys among the students... (Source)
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An eye-opening and previously untold story, Factory Girls is the first look into the everyday lives of the migrant factory population in China.
China has 130 million migrant workers—the largest migration in human history. In Factory Girls, Leslie T. Chang, a former correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing, tells the story of these workers primarily through the lives of two young women, whom she follows over the course of three years as they attempt to rise from the assembly lines of Dongguan, an industrial city in China’s Pearl River Delta. more An eye-opening and previously untold story, Factory Girls is the first look into the everyday lives of the migrant factory population in China.
China has 130 million migrant workers—the largest migration in human history. In Factory Girls, Leslie T. Chang, a former correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing, tells the story of these workers primarily through the lives of two young women, whom she follows over the course of three years as they attempt to rise from the assembly lines of Dongguan, an industrial city in China’s Pearl River Delta.
As she tracks their lives, Chang paints a never-before-seen picture of migrant life—a world where nearly everyone is under thirty; where you can lose your boyfriend and your friends with the loss of a mobile phone; where a few computer or English lessons can catapult you into a completely different social class. Chang takes us inside a sneaker factory so large that it has its own hospital, movie theater, and fire department; to posh karaoke bars that are fronts for prostitution; to makeshift English classes where students shave their heads in monklike devotion and sit day after day in front of machines watching English words flash by; and back to a farming village for the Chinese New Year, revealing the poverty and idleness of rural life that drive young girls to leave home in the first place. Throughout this riveting portrait, Chang also interweaves the story of her own family’s migrations, within China and to the West, providing historical and personal frames of reference for her investigation.
A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to America’s shores remade our own country a century ago. less Jeffrey WasserstromI love the way it’s written, and the way that Chang blends her own life story in with it. She pairs the story of her family’s migration out of China to the United States, where she grew up, to the movement of young women from rural China to urban China today. And she sets up a parallel between the way that American cities were transformed by overseas immigrants who fuelled the American industrial... (Source)
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This “gripping and poignant memoir” (New York Times Book Review) draws us into the intersections of everyday life and Communist power from the first days of “Liberation” in 1949 through the post-Mao era. The son of a professional family, Kang Zhengguo is a free spirit, drawn to literature. In Mao’s China, these innocuous circumstances expose him at age twenty to a fierce struggle session, expulsion from university, and a four-year term of hard labor. So begins his long stay in the prison-camp system. He finally escapes the Chinese gulag by forfeiting his identity: at age twenty-eight... more This “gripping and poignant memoir” (New York Times Book Review) draws us into the intersections of everyday life and Communist power from the first days of “Liberation” in 1949 through the post-Mao era. The son of a professional family, Kang Zhengguo is a free spirit, drawn to literature. In Mao’s China, these innocuous circumstances expose him at age twenty to a fierce struggle session, expulsion from university, and a four-year term of hard labor. So begins his long stay in the prison-camp system. He finally escapes the Chinese gulag by forfeiting his identity: at age twenty-eight he is adopted by an aging bachelor in a peasant village, which enables him to start a new life. less Jeffrey WasserstromI wasn’t excited about reading this book at first, because I thought it would be yet another familiar account of suffering during the Cultural Revolution. And yet the book really won me over. And that’s partly because it deals with the 1950s as well as the Cultural Revolution of 1966 through 1976. Indeed it goes beyond that to the author’s subsequent journey to the United States. I think the book... (Source)
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“Spence draws upon his extensive knowledge of Chinese politics and culture to create an illuminating picture of Mao. . . . Superb.” (Chicago Tribune)
From humble origins in the provinces, Mao Zedong rose to absolute power, unifying with an iron fist a vast country torn apart by years of weak leadership, colonialism, and war. This sharply drawn and insightful account brings to life this modern-day emperor and the tumultuous era that he did so much to shape.
Jonathan Spence captures Mao in all his paradoxical grandeur and sheds light on the radical... more “Spence draws upon his extensive knowledge of Chinese politics and culture to create an illuminating picture of Mao. . . . Superb.” (Chicago Tribune)
From humble origins in the provinces, Mao Zedong rose to absolute power, unifying with an iron fist a vast country torn apart by years of weak leadership, colonialism, and war. This sharply drawn and insightful account brings to life this modern-day emperor and the tumultuous era that he did so much to shape.
Jonathan Spence captures Mao in all his paradoxical grandeur and sheds light on the radical transformation he unleashed that still reverberates in China today.
less Jeffrey WasserstromHe’s an incredible figure, in almost any way you think about it, to have led this transformative revolution that turned China upside down and inside out, and then go on to lead the country for the first 27 years after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. So he was involved in dramatic events, he was a larger-than-life figure, and also there are distinct stages in his life in which... (Source)
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The Buddhist monk Tanxu surmounted extraordinary obstacles--poverty, wars, famine, and foreign occupation--to become one of the most prominent monks in China, founding numerous temples and schools and attracting crowds of students and disciples wherever he went. Heart of Buddha, Heart of China traces Tanxu's journey from his birth in 1875 to his death in 1963. Through Tanxu's life we come to know one of the most turbulent periods in Chinese history as it moved from empire to republic. James Carter draws on archives and interviews to provide a book that is part travelogue, part... more The Buddhist monk Tanxu surmounted extraordinary obstacles--poverty, wars, famine, and foreign occupation--to become one of the most prominent monks in China, founding numerous temples and schools and attracting crowds of students and disciples wherever he went. Heart of Buddha, Heart of China traces Tanxu's journey from his birth in 1875 to his death in 1963. Through Tanxu's life we come to know one of the most turbulent periods in Chinese history as it moved from empire to republic. James Carter draws on archives and interviews to provide a book that is part travelogue, part history, and part biography.
less Jeffrey WasserstromHe’s a man who, after a fairly ordinary family life, went through a process of religious discovery which led him to become an itinerant monk, establishing Buddhist temples across China. He also lived through many of the most important events of the 20th century. Part of the conceit of the book is to cast familiar events – such as the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s – in a new light, by... (Source)
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The history of China in the nineteenth century usually features men as the dominant figures in a chronicle of warfare, rebellion, and dynastic decline. This book challenges that model and provides a different account of the era, history as seen through the eyes of women. Basing her remarkable study on the poetry and memoirs of three generations of literary women of the Zhang family—Tang Yaoqing, her eldest daughter, and her eldest granddaughter—Susan Mann illuminates a China that has been largely invisible. Drawing on a stunning array of primary materials—published poetry, gazetteer articles,... more The history of China in the nineteenth century usually features men as the dominant figures in a chronicle of warfare, rebellion, and dynastic decline. This book challenges that model and provides a different account of the era, history as seen through the eyes of women. Basing her remarkable study on the poetry and memoirs of three generations of literary women of the Zhang family—Tang Yaoqing, her eldest daughter, and her eldest granddaughter—Susan Mann illuminates a China that has been largely invisible. Drawing on a stunning array of primary materials—published poetry, gazetteer articles, memorabilia—as well as a variety of other historical documents, Mann reconstructs these women's intimate relationships, personal aspirations, values, ideas, and political consciousness. She transforms our understanding of gender relations and what it meant to be an educated woman during China's transition from empire to nation and offers a new view of the history of late imperial women. less Jeffrey WasserstromIt’s set in the Qing dynasty, mostly in the 19th century, and it tries to bring to life the experiences of the women of a single family. One of the challenges of biographies of women in different settings is the limited records that are left of their lives. But with these particular women, they wrote a lot of poetry, and Mann uses that to great effect. She also experiments with the form of... (Source)
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Finalist for the 2015 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism
Longlisted for the Lionel Gelber Award for the Best Non-Fiction book in the world on Foreign Affairs
An Economist Book of the Year, 2014
A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice
"One of the best analyses of the impact of Tiananmen throughout China in the years since 1989." --The New York Times Book Review
On June 4, 1989, People's Liberation Army soldiers opened fire on unarmed civilians in Beijing, killing untold hundreds of... more Finalist for the 2015 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism
Longlisted for the Lionel Gelber Award for the Best Non-Fiction book in the world on Foreign Affairs
An Economist Book of the Year, 2014
A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice
"One of the best analyses of the impact of Tiananmen throughout China in the years since 1989." --The New York Times Book Review
On June 4, 1989, People's Liberation Army soldiers opened fire on unarmed civilians in Beijing, killing untold hundreds of people. A quarter-century later, this defining event remains buried in China's modern history, successfully expunged from collective memory. In The People's Republic of Amnesia, Louisa Lim charts how the events of June 4th changed China, and how China changed the events of June 4th by rewriting its own history.
Lim reveals new details about those fateful days, including how one of the country's most senior politicians lost a family member to an army bullet, as well as the inside story of the young soldiers sent to clear Tiananmen Square. She also introduces us to individuals whose lives were transformed by the events of Tiananmen Square, such as a founder of the Tiananmen Mothers, whose son was shot by martial law troops; and one of the most important government officials in the country, who post-Tiananmen became one of its most prominent dissidents. And she examines how June 4th shaped China's national identity, fostering a generation of young nationalists, who know little and care less about 1989. For the first time, Lim uncovers the details of a brutal crackdown in a second Chinese city that until now has been a near-perfect case study in the state's ability to rewrite history, excising the most painful episodes. By tracking down eyewitnesses, discovering US diplomatic cables, and combing through official Chinese records, Lim offers the first account of a story that has remained untold for a quarter of a century. The People's Republic of Amnesia is an original, powerfully gripping, and ultimately unforgettable book about a national tragedy and an unhealed wound.
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Mark KrikorianThere was an interesting book a few years back describing how Chinese society, and not just the govt, has made a conscious effort to erase memory of the Tiananmen protests & massacre.
https://t.co/sjfSnrD1wJ https://t.co/7VFiYj0FEh (Source)
Jeffrey WasserstromYes, and a great book. It’s the most important book to deal with 1989 in a long time: to my mind at least in the past decade. It’s powerful in the way it revisits the events of 1989 through profiles of participants. For example, we hear from a soldier who was involved in the crackdown and has rethought his role in events since then. The book also has a new investigation of a massacre that took... (Source)
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