The Chinese Cultural Revolution as History [Hardcover]

Based on a wide variety of unusual and only recently available sources, this book covers the entire Cultural Revolution decade (1966-76) and shows how the Cultural Revolution was experienced by ordinary Chinese at the base of urban and rural society. The contributors emphasize the complex interaction of state and society during this tumultuous period, exploring the way events originating at the center of political power changed people's lives and how, in turn, people's responses took the Cultural Revolution in unplanned and unanticipated directions. This approach offers a more fruitful way to understand the Cultural Revolution and its historical legacies.The book provides a new look at the student Red Guard movements, the effort to identify and cultivate potential revolutionary leaders in outlying provinces, stubborn resistance to campaigns to destroy the old culture, and the violence and mass killings in rural China. By probing the extent of the revolution across different regions in China and drawing attention to its later development after the Red Guards movement petered out, this work greatly broadens knowledge of the revolution and modern Chinese history in general. This volume is a valuable collection of essays on the Chinese Cultural Revolution It enjoys many new sources of information, which [were] not available for the previous scholarship on the history of the Cultural Revolution. The new information and new interpretations of the events as a result of it, alone were enough to make this volume a very useful reference for students of the Cultural Revolution in particular and the Chinese politics in general. Joseph W. Esherick holds the Hwei-chih and Julia Hsiu Chair in Chinese Studies and is Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego. Paul G. Pickowicz is Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego. Andrew G. Walder is Professor of Sociology at Stanford University and Director of the Asia-Pacific Research Centl"