A bitter revolution : China's struggle with the modern world / Rana Mitter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mitter, Rana, 1969-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

China--History--20th century.

China.

History.

China--Politics and government--20th century.

Politics and government.

Physical Description:

xix, 357 pages : illustrations, map ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2004.

Summary:

China is now poised to take a key role on the world stage, but in the early twentieth century the situation could not have been more different. Rana Mitter returns to this pivotal moment in Chinese history to uncover the origins of the painful transition from a premodern past into a modern world to present a powerful new history of twentieth-century China.

The defining moment in the development of a modern China is shown to be 4 May 1919 at the Tian'anmen Gate in Beijing, where a new generation rejected Confucianism and traditional Chinese culture, and protested violently against the Paris Peace Conference. Chinese cities at that time still bore the imprints of their ancient past, with narrow lanes and sacred temples, but they were starting to change with the influx of foreign traders, teachers, and missionaries, all eager to shape China's ancient past into a modern present. People's lives changed, from the politicians and novelists adapting to the realities of a globalized world, to the men and women who worked, loved, and laughed in the parks and cafes of the new China.

Mitter takes us through the resulting social turmoil and political promise, the devastating war against Japan in the 1940s, Communism and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, and the new era of hope in the 1980s ended by the Tian'anmen uprising, before reflecting on the possibilities of renewal in the new millennium. He reveals the impetus behind the dramatic changes in Chinese culture and politics as being China's 'New Culture'. This strain of thought celebrated youth, individualism, and the heady mixture of strange and seductive new cultures from places as far apart as America, India, and Japan, yet running through it was a current of violence that would characterize modern China's history.

Contents:

Pronunciation, Transliterations, and Names xviii

Part I Shock

1. Flashpoint: 4 May 1919: The Making of a New China 3

Why was May Fourth Important? 12

The Fall of the Chinese Empire 26

Uneasy Birth: The Chinese Republic 35

2. A Tale of Two Cities: Beijing, Shanghai, and the May Fourth Generation 41

Beijing: Intellectual Centre of the Movement 43

Shanghai: China's Modern Challenge 49

People: The May Fourth Generation 54

Subcultures 65

3. Experiments in Happiness: Life and Love in New Culture China 69

New Classes, New Opportunities 70

Print, Commerce, and Culture 76

Love, Labour, and Liberty 77

Ask Taofen! 80

The May Fourth Entrepreneur 90

Saving the Nation, Making a Profit 93

End of an Era? 99

4. Goodbye Confucius: New Culture, New Politics 102

Iconoclasm 108

Goodbye Confucius? 110

China's Road to Nationalism 117

Internationalism, Cosmopolitism, and Nationalism 123

Looking East in Europe 127

Not Just West and East: Thinking Beyond Europe 129

Japan's Promise, Japan's Menace 133

Party Politics 134

The Communists 135

The Nationalists 138

Nationalists and Communists, United and Divided 142

The Question of Woman 146

Conclusion: Goodbye May Fourth? 149

Part II Aftershock

5. A Land of Death: Darkness over China 155

China Changes Shape, 1931-7 157

The Choices of the May Fourth Generation 163

China Falls Apart, 1937-45 167

War and Confrontation 178

The New World 181

The Cold War 190

The Great Leap Forward 194

Conclusion: May Fourth in Abeyance 198

6. Tomorrow the Whole World Will Be Red: The Cultural Revolution and the Distortions of May Fourth 200

Considering the Cultural Revolution 207

What was the Cultural Revolution? 210

The Cold War and the Cultural Revolution 214

Life and Death during the Red Guard Period 217

Changing the Guard 226

May Fourth or Not? 230

The Cold War and the Romance of Technology 233

Divisions: Red, Black, Men, Women 238

Conclusion: A Strange May Fourth 240

7. Ugly Chinamen and Dead Rivers: Reform and the 'New May Fourth' 244

The Late Cold War 246

Life and Liberty in the 'New Era' 248

Xiahai: 'Jumping into the Sea' of the New Society 255

What Sort of Crisis? 258

The Culture Fever Debates 260

The Ugly Chinaman and Heshang 262

Echoes of May Fourth: The Different Crises 269

Tian'anmen and the End of an Era 272

The Nature of the New Era: Towards Chinese Democracy? 280

8. Learning to Let Go: The May Fourth Legacy in the New Millennium 285

The Two Cities Revisited 289

Coping with the Past 295

New Thinking 301

Across the Straits 305

Searching for a New Story 308.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0192803417

OCLC:

54206069