Realistic revolution : contesting Chinese history, culture, and politics after 1989 / Els van Dongen, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Van Dongen, Els, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Revolutions--China--History--20th century.

Revolutions.

Radicalism.

History.

China.

Radicalism--China--History--20th century.

China--Intellectual life--1976-.

Intellectual life.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xii, 276 pages ; 24 cm

Other Title:

Contesting Chinese history, culture, and politics after 1989

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Summary:

"Revolution, according to Mao Zedong, cannot be compared to "writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery" because it cannot be "so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous." Revolution is an "act of violence." During the decade after the death of the Great Helmsman, Chinese intellectuals began to question not only the necessity of violent revolution but also the notion of radical change. The belief that there was "no making without breaking" (bupo buli) had not only permeated Chinese socialist modernity, they argued, but also China's famous twentieth-century political-cum-cultural movement, the May Fourth Movement (1917-21). In the political, historical, and cultural discourse of the early 1990s, intellectuals said goodbye to the radicalism of twentieth-century China."--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Goodbye radicalism : the early 1990s

Neo-conservatism and doing things with isms

Xiao Gongqin and the "Yan Fu Paradox"

A tale of two revolutions

Chen Lai and the "Max Weber dilemma"

Of post-isms and May Fourth

The double nature of realistic revolution

Biographies of prominent intellectuals

Glossary.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781108421300

110842130X

9781108431729

1108431720

OCLC:

1086412576