The People's Republic of amnesia : Tiananmen revisited / Louisa Lim.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lim, Louisa, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

China--History--Tiananmen Square Incident, 1989.

China--History--Tiananmen Square Incident, 1989--Influence.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (281 pages) : maps

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Oxford University Press, USA, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"Despite its emergence from backward isolation into a dynamic world economic power, a quarter-century after the People's Army crushed unarmed protestors--labeled anti-revolutionaries--in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, the defining event of China's modern history remains buried. Memory is dangerous in a country built to function on national amnesia. A single act of public remembrance might expose the frailty of the state's carefully constructed edifice of accepted history, one kept aloft by strict censorship, blatant falsehood, and willful forgetting. Though the consequences of Tiananmen Square are visible everywhere throughout China, what happened there has been consigned to silence. In The People's Republic of Amnesia, NPR's China correspondent Louisa Lim offers an insider's account of this seminal tragedy, revealing the enormous impact it had on China and the reverberations still felt today. Official hypocrisy and the government's obsession with maintaining stability and silence have deepened June 4th's impact on the nation's psyche. Lim interweaves portraits of eight individuals whose lives have been shaped by June 4--including the two women who started Tiananmen Mothers, one of the first and most prominent grassroots organizations outside the Chinese government's control; a student survivor involved in the protests; a soldier who took part in the suppression; and a high-ranking government administrator who played a role in ordering the tanks into the square. In the process she offers a textured, intimate, and haunting look at the national tragedy and an unhealed wound"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover

The People's Republic of Amnesia

Copyright

Dedication

CONTENTS

Author's Note

Timeline

Maps

Plates

Introduction

1. Soldier

2. Staying

3. Exile

4. Student

5. Mother

6. Patriot

7. Official

8. Chengdu

Afterword: "The Debt of Memory"

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-19-934772-7

0-19-934771-9

OCLC:

877868294