Excited to know
that the paperback of my book The Red
Guard Generation and Political Activism in China will be out in March,
2017. I had to come up with a very condensed version of the book description,
and here it is:
Guobin Yang argues that Chinese youth performed
an imagined revolution from 1966 to 1968 in order to prove their revolutionary
credentials and enact a hallowed political mythology. As sent-down youth in the
1970s, they rejected their revolutionary idealism and embraced self-interest
and the values of ordinary life, paving the way for the cultural and political
movements of the 1980s. Yang shows that contemporary memories of the Cultural
Revolution are contested and often fall along the lines of political division
that formed fifty years ago.
The book description on Amazon
and on the web site of the press is like this:
Raised to be
"flowers of the nation," the first generation born after the founding
of the People's Republic of China was united in its political outlook and at
first embraced the Cultural Revolution of 1966, but then split into warring
factions. Investigating the causes of this fracture, Guobin Yang argues that
Chinese youth engaged in an imaginary revolution from 1966 to 1968, enacting a
political mythology that encouraged violence as a way to prove one's
revolutionary credentials. This same competitive dynamic would later turn the
Red Guard against the communist government.
Throughout the 1970s, the majority of Red Guard youth were sent to work in rural villages, where they developed an appreciation for the values of ordinary life. From this experience, an underground cultural movement was born. Rejecting idolatry, these relocated revolutionaries developed a new form of resistance that signaled a new era of enlightenment, culminating in the Democracy Wall movement of the late 1970s and the Tiananmen protest of 1989. Yang's final chapter on the politics of history and memory argues that contemporary memories of the Cultural Revolution are factionalized along these lines of political division, formed fifty years before.
Throughout the 1970s, the majority of Red Guard youth were sent to work in rural villages, where they developed an appreciation for the values of ordinary life. From this experience, an underground cultural movement was born. Rejecting idolatry, these relocated revolutionaries developed a new form of resistance that signaled a new era of enlightenment, culminating in the Democracy Wall movement of the late 1970s and the Tiananmen protest of 1989. Yang's final chapter on the politics of history and memory argues that contemporary memories of the Cultural Revolution are factionalized along these lines of political division, formed fifty years before.
