Chinese Discourses on the Peasant, 1900-1949

Chinese Discourses on the Peasant, 1900-1949

Author: Xiaorong Han

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0791483924

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Shows how Chinese intellectuals with varying politics envisioned the peasantry and its role in changing society during the first half of the twentieth century. Xiaorong Han explores how Chinese intellectuals envisioned the peasantry and its role in changing society during the first half of the twentieth century. Politically motivated intellectuals, both Communist and non-Communist, believed that rural peasants and their villages would be at the heart of change during this long period of national crisis. Nevertheless, intellectuals saw themselves as the true shapers of change who would transform and use the peasantry. Han uses intellectuals’ writings to provide a comprehensive look at their views of the peasantry. He shows how intellectuals with varying politics created images of the peasant—a supposed contemporary image and an ideal image of the peasant transformed for political ends, how intellectuals theorized on the nature of Chinese rural life, and how intellectuals conceived their own relationships with peasants. Xiaorong Han is Assistant Professor of History at Butler University.


Book Synopsis Chinese Discourses on the Peasant, 1900-1949 by : Xiaorong Han

Download or read book Chinese Discourses on the Peasant, 1900-1949 written by Xiaorong Han and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows how Chinese intellectuals with varying politics envisioned the peasantry and its role in changing society during the first half of the twentieth century. Xiaorong Han explores how Chinese intellectuals envisioned the peasantry and its role in changing society during the first half of the twentieth century. Politically motivated intellectuals, both Communist and non-Communist, believed that rural peasants and their villages would be at the heart of change during this long period of national crisis. Nevertheless, intellectuals saw themselves as the true shapers of change who would transform and use the peasantry. Han uses intellectuals’ writings to provide a comprehensive look at their views of the peasantry. He shows how intellectuals with varying politics created images of the peasant—a supposed contemporary image and an ideal image of the peasant transformed for political ends, how intellectuals theorized on the nature of Chinese rural life, and how intellectuals conceived their own relationships with peasants. Xiaorong Han is Assistant Professor of History at Butler University.


Red God

Red God

Author: Xiaorong Han

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2014-11-06

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 143845385X

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Robin Hood–style revolutionary Wei Baqun is often described as one of China's "three great peasant leaders," alongside Mao Zedong and Peng Pai. In his home county of Donglan, where he started organizing peasants in the early 1920s, Wei Baqun came to be considered a demigod after his death—a communist revolutionary with supernatural powers. So much legend has grown up around this fascinating figure that it is difficult to know the truth from the tale. Presenting Wei Baqun's life in light of interactions between his local community and the Chinese nation, Red God is organized around the journeys he made from his multiethnic frontier county to major cities where he picked up ideas, methods, and contacts, and around the three revolts he launched back home. Xiaorong Han explores the congruencies and conflicts of local, regional, and national forces at play during Wei Baqun's lifetime while examining his role as a link between his Zhuang people and the Han majority, between the village and the city, and between the periphery and the center.


Book Synopsis Red God by : Xiaorong Han

Download or read book Red God written by Xiaorong Han and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robin Hood–style revolutionary Wei Baqun is often described as one of China's "three great peasant leaders," alongside Mao Zedong and Peng Pai. In his home county of Donglan, where he started organizing peasants in the early 1920s, Wei Baqun came to be considered a demigod after his death—a communist revolutionary with supernatural powers. So much legend has grown up around this fascinating figure that it is difficult to know the truth from the tale. Presenting Wei Baqun's life in light of interactions between his local community and the Chinese nation, Red God is organized around the journeys he made from his multiethnic frontier county to major cities where he picked up ideas, methods, and contacts, and around the three revolts he launched back home. Xiaorong Han explores the congruencies and conflicts of local, regional, and national forces at play during Wei Baqun's lifetime while examining his role as a link between his Zhuang people and the Han majority, between the village and the city, and between the periphery and the center.


Historical Dictionary of Modern China (1800-1949)

Historical Dictionary of Modern China (1800-1949)

Author: James Z. Gao

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2009-06-16

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 0810863081

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The Historical Dictionary of Modern China (1800-1949) offers a concise but comprehensive examination of the political, military, economic, social, and cultural development of modern China. Instead of focusing merely on the political elites of China, this reference covers a variety of significant persons, including women and ethnic minorities; new historical concepts; cultural and educational institutions; and economic activities. Drawing on newly-available records, including a large mass of governmental and family archives, the narratives presented reveal new facts, offer a new interpretation in accordance with China's modernization process during the late Qing period, and a revisionist perspective on the Republican history. The chronology records not only political and military events but also other experiences of the Chinese people. The bibliography gives prominence to current literature on China's drive towards modernization and appendixes provide the reader with detailed information on China's cultural and economic transformation.


Book Synopsis Historical Dictionary of Modern China (1800-1949) by : James Z. Gao

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Modern China (1800-1949) written by James Z. Gao and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2009-06-16 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Historical Dictionary of Modern China (1800-1949) offers a concise but comprehensive examination of the political, military, economic, social, and cultural development of modern China. Instead of focusing merely on the political elites of China, this reference covers a variety of significant persons, including women and ethnic minorities; new historical concepts; cultural and educational institutions; and economic activities. Drawing on newly-available records, including a large mass of governmental and family archives, the narratives presented reveal new facts, offer a new interpretation in accordance with China's modernization process during the late Qing period, and a revisionist perspective on the Republican history. The chronology records not only political and military events but also other experiences of the Chinese people. The bibliography gives prominence to current literature on China's drive towards modernization and appendixes provide the reader with detailed information on China's cultural and economic transformation.


Global Capitalism and the Future of Agrarian Society

Global Capitalism and the Future of Agrarian Society

Author: Arif Dirlik

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-11-17

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1317259114

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This book offers historical and comparative analyses of changes in agrarian society forced by the globalization of capitalism, and the implications of these changes for human welfare globally. The book gives special attention to recent economic development and urbanization in the People s Republic of China which have had a major impact on contemporary transformations globally. Case studies from South and Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America in turn place these transformations in a comparative global perspective. The contributors include distinguished scholars from the UN, PRC, India, Zimbabwe, and Latin America who are also active in policy issues."


Book Synopsis Global Capitalism and the Future of Agrarian Society by : Arif Dirlik

Download or read book Global Capitalism and the Future of Agrarian Society written by Arif Dirlik and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers historical and comparative analyses of changes in agrarian society forced by the globalization of capitalism, and the implications of these changes for human welfare globally. The book gives special attention to recent economic development and urbanization in the People s Republic of China which have had a major impact on contemporary transformations globally. Case studies from South and Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America in turn place these transformations in a comparative global perspective. The contributors include distinguished scholars from the UN, PRC, India, Zimbabwe, and Latin America who are also active in policy issues."


China's Lonely Revolution

China's Lonely Revolution

Author: Jeremy A. Murray

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2017-03-27

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 1438465319

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Presents a new view of the Chinese revolution through the lens of the local Communist movement in Hainan between 1926 and 1956. Jeremy A. Murray’s study of local Communist revolutionaries in Hainan between 1926 and 1956 provides a window into the diversity and complexity of the Chinese revolution. Long at the margins of the Chinese state, Hainan was once known by mainlanders only for its malarial climate and fierce indigenous people. In spite of efforts by the Chinese Nationalists and the Japanese to exterminate Hainan’s Communists, the movement survived because of an alliance with the indigenous Li. For years it persevered, though in complete isolation from Communist headquarters on the mainland. Using Chinese-language sources, archival materials, and interviews, Murray draws a vivid picture of this movement from the Hainanese perspective, and broadens our understanding of how patriotism, Party loyalty, and Chinese identity have been experienced and interpreted in modern China.


Book Synopsis China's Lonely Revolution by : Jeremy A. Murray

Download or read book China's Lonely Revolution written by Jeremy A. Murray and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2017-03-27 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a new view of the Chinese revolution through the lens of the local Communist movement in Hainan between 1926 and 1956. Jeremy A. Murray’s study of local Communist revolutionaries in Hainan between 1926 and 1956 provides a window into the diversity and complexity of the Chinese revolution. Long at the margins of the Chinese state, Hainan was once known by mainlanders only for its malarial climate and fierce indigenous people. In spite of efforts by the Chinese Nationalists and the Japanese to exterminate Hainan’s Communists, the movement survived because of an alliance with the indigenous Li. For years it persevered, though in complete isolation from Communist headquarters on the mainland. Using Chinese-language sources, archival materials, and interviews, Murray draws a vivid picture of this movement from the Hainanese perspective, and broadens our understanding of how patriotism, Party loyalty, and Chinese identity have been experienced and interpreted in modern China.


City Versus Countryside in Mao's China

City Versus Countryside in Mao's China

Author: Jeremy Brown

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-06-18

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1107380065

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The gap between those living in the city and those in the countryside remains one of China's most intractable problems. As this powerful work of grassroots history argues, the origins of China's rural-urban divide can be traced back to the Mao Zedong era. While Mao pledged to remove the gap between the city worker and the peasant, his revolutionary policies misfired and ended up provoking still greater discrepancies between town and country, usually to the disadvantage of villagers. Through archival sources, personal diaries, untapped government dossiers and interviews with people from cities and villages in northern China, the book recounts their personal experiences, showing how they retaliated against the daily restrictions imposed on them while traversing between the city and the countryside. Vivid and harrowing accounts of forced and illicit migration, the staggering inequity of the Great Leap Famine and political exile during the Cultural Revolution reveal how Chinese people fought back against policies that pitted city dwellers against villagers.


Book Synopsis City Versus Countryside in Mao's China by : Jeremy Brown

Download or read book City Versus Countryside in Mao's China written by Jeremy Brown and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-18 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gap between those living in the city and those in the countryside remains one of China's most intractable problems. As this powerful work of grassroots history argues, the origins of China's rural-urban divide can be traced back to the Mao Zedong era. While Mao pledged to remove the gap between the city worker and the peasant, his revolutionary policies misfired and ended up provoking still greater discrepancies between town and country, usually to the disadvantage of villagers. Through archival sources, personal diaries, untapped government dossiers and interviews with people from cities and villages in northern China, the book recounts their personal experiences, showing how they retaliated against the daily restrictions imposed on them while traversing between the city and the countryside. Vivid and harrowing accounts of forced and illicit migration, the staggering inequity of the Great Leap Famine and political exile during the Cultural Revolution reveal how Chinese people fought back against policies that pitted city dwellers against villagers.


The Peasant in Postsocialist China

The Peasant in Postsocialist China

Author: Alexander F. Day

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-07-18

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1107435293

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The role of the peasant in society has been fundamental throughout China's history, posing difficult, much-debated questions for Chinese modernity. Today, as China becomes an economic superpower, the issue continues to loom large. Can the peasantry be integrated into a new Chinese capitalism, or will it form an excluded and marginalized class? Alexander F. Day's highly original appraisal explores the role of the peasantry throughout Chinese history and its importance within the development of post-socialist-era politics. Examining the various ways in which the peasant is historicized, Day shows how different perceptions of the rural lie at the heart of the divergence of contemporary political stances and of new forms of social and political activism in China. Indispensable reading for all those wishing to understand Chinese history and politics, The Peasant in Postsocialist China is a new point of departure in the debate as to the nature of tomorrow's China.


Book Synopsis The Peasant in Postsocialist China by : Alexander F. Day

Download or read book The Peasant in Postsocialist China written by Alexander F. Day and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The role of the peasant in society has been fundamental throughout China's history, posing difficult, much-debated questions for Chinese modernity. Today, as China becomes an economic superpower, the issue continues to loom large. Can the peasantry be integrated into a new Chinese capitalism, or will it form an excluded and marginalized class? Alexander F. Day's highly original appraisal explores the role of the peasantry throughout Chinese history and its importance within the development of post-socialist-era politics. Examining the various ways in which the peasant is historicized, Day shows how different perceptions of the rural lie at the heart of the divergence of contemporary political stances and of new forms of social and political activism in China. Indispensable reading for all those wishing to understand Chinese history and politics, The Peasant in Postsocialist China is a new point of departure in the debate as to the nature of tomorrow's China.


China at War

China at War

Author: Xiaobing Li

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2012-01-10

Total Pages: 641

ISBN-13: 1598844164

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This comprehensive volume traces the Chinese military and its experiences over the past 2,500 years, describing clashes with other kingdoms and nations as well as internal rebellions and revolutions. As the first book of its kind, China at War: An Encyclopedia expands far beyond the conventional military history book that is focused on describing key wars, battles, military leaders, and influential events. Author Xiaobing Li—an expert writer in the subjects of Asian history and military affairs—provides not only a broad, chronological account of China's long military history, but also addresses Chinese values, concepts, and attitudes regarding war. As a result, readers can better understand the wider sociopolitical history of the most populous and one of the largest countries in the world—and grasp the complex security concerns and strategic calculations often behind China's decision-making process. This encyclopedia contains an introductory essay written to place the reference entries within a larger contextual framework, allowing students to compare Chinese with Western and American views and approaches to war. Topics among the hundreds of entries by experts in the field include Sunzi's classic The Art of War, Mao Zedong's guerrilla warfare in the 20th century, Chinese involvement in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and China's nuclear program in the 21st century.


Book Synopsis China at War by : Xiaobing Li

Download or read book China at War written by Xiaobing Li and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2012-01-10 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive volume traces the Chinese military and its experiences over the past 2,500 years, describing clashes with other kingdoms and nations as well as internal rebellions and revolutions. As the first book of its kind, China at War: An Encyclopedia expands far beyond the conventional military history book that is focused on describing key wars, battles, military leaders, and influential events. Author Xiaobing Li—an expert writer in the subjects of Asian history and military affairs—provides not only a broad, chronological account of China's long military history, but also addresses Chinese values, concepts, and attitudes regarding war. As a result, readers can better understand the wider sociopolitical history of the most populous and one of the largest countries in the world—and grasp the complex security concerns and strategic calculations often behind China's decision-making process. This encyclopedia contains an introductory essay written to place the reference entries within a larger contextual framework, allowing students to compare Chinese with Western and American views and approaches to war. Topics among the hundreds of entries by experts in the field include Sunzi's classic The Art of War, Mao Zedong's guerrilla warfare in the 20th century, Chinese involvement in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and China's nuclear program in the 21st century.


Going to the Countryside

Going to the Countryside

Author: Yu Zhang

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2020-03-03

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 0472126601

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Since the beginning of the twentieth century, modern Chinese intellectuals, reformers, revolutionaries, leftist journalists, and idealistic youth had often crossed the increasing gap between the city and the countryside, which made the act of “going to the countryside” a distinctively modern experience and a continuous practice in China. Such a spatial crossing eventually culminated in the socialist state program of “down to the villages” movements during the 1960s and 1970s. What, then, was the special significance of “going to the countryside” before that era? Going to the Countryside deals with the cultural representations and practices of this practice between 1915 and 1965, focusing on individual homecoming, rural reconstruction, revolutionary journeys to Yan’an, the revolutionary “going down to the people” as well as going to the frontiers and rural hometowns for socialist construction. As part of the larger discourses of enlightenment, revolution, and socialist industrialization, “going to the countryside” entailed new ways of looking at the world and ordinary people, brought about new experiences of space and time, initiated new means of human communication and interaction, generated new forms of cultural production, revealed a fundamental epistemic shift in modern China, and ultimately created a new aesthetic, social, and political landscape. As a critical response to the “urban turn” in the past few decades, this book brings the rural back to the central concern of Chinese cultural studies and aims to bridge the city and the countryside as two types of important geographical entities, which have often remained as disparate scholarly subjects of inquiry in the current state of China studies. Chinese modernity has been characterized by a dual process that created problems from the vast gap between the city and the countryside but simultaneously initiated constant efforts to cope with the gap personally, collectively, and institutionally. The process of “crossing” two distinct geographical spaces was often presented as continuous explorations of various ways of establishing the connectivity, interaction, and relationship of these two imagined geographical entities. Going to the Countryside argues that this new body of cultural productions did not merely turn the rural into a constantly changing representational space; most importantly, the rural has been constructed as a distinct modern experiential and aesthetic realm characterized by revolutionary changes in human conceptions and sentiments.


Book Synopsis Going to the Countryside by : Yu Zhang

Download or read book Going to the Countryside written by Yu Zhang and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the beginning of the twentieth century, modern Chinese intellectuals, reformers, revolutionaries, leftist journalists, and idealistic youth had often crossed the increasing gap between the city and the countryside, which made the act of “going to the countryside” a distinctively modern experience and a continuous practice in China. Such a spatial crossing eventually culminated in the socialist state program of “down to the villages” movements during the 1960s and 1970s. What, then, was the special significance of “going to the countryside” before that era? Going to the Countryside deals with the cultural representations and practices of this practice between 1915 and 1965, focusing on individual homecoming, rural reconstruction, revolutionary journeys to Yan’an, the revolutionary “going down to the people” as well as going to the frontiers and rural hometowns for socialist construction. As part of the larger discourses of enlightenment, revolution, and socialist industrialization, “going to the countryside” entailed new ways of looking at the world and ordinary people, brought about new experiences of space and time, initiated new means of human communication and interaction, generated new forms of cultural production, revealed a fundamental epistemic shift in modern China, and ultimately created a new aesthetic, social, and political landscape. As a critical response to the “urban turn” in the past few decades, this book brings the rural back to the central concern of Chinese cultural studies and aims to bridge the city and the countryside as two types of important geographical entities, which have often remained as disparate scholarly subjects of inquiry in the current state of China studies. Chinese modernity has been characterized by a dual process that created problems from the vast gap between the city and the countryside but simultaneously initiated constant efforts to cope with the gap personally, collectively, and institutionally. The process of “crossing” two distinct geographical spaces was often presented as continuous explorations of various ways of establishing the connectivity, interaction, and relationship of these two imagined geographical entities. Going to the Countryside argues that this new body of cultural productions did not merely turn the rural into a constantly changing representational space; most importantly, the rural has been constructed as a distinct modern experiential and aesthetic realm characterized by revolutionary changes in human conceptions and sentiments.


Urbanizing China in War and Peace

Urbanizing China in War and Peace

Author: Toby Lincoln

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2015-05-31

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0824854195

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Urbanizing China in War and Peace rewrites the history of rural-urban relations in the first half of the twentieth century by arguing that urbanization is a total societal transformation and as important a factor as revolution, nationalism, or modernity in the history of modern China. Linking the global and the local in space and time, China's urbanization was not only driven by industrial capitalism and the expansion of the state, but also shaped how these forces influenced daily life in the city and the countryside. Although the conflict that beset China after the Japanese invasion in 1937 affected the development of cities, towns, and villages, it did not derail previous changes. To truly understand how China has emerged as the world's largest urban society, we must consider such continuities across the first half of the twentieth century—during periods of war as well as peace. The book focuses on Wuxi, a city that lies a hundred miles to the west of Shanghai. In the early twentieth century local industrialists were responsible for it quickly becoming the largest industrial city in China outside treaty ports. They built factories, roads, and other infrastructure outside the old city walls and in surrounding towns and villages. Chapters examine the county's transformation as recorded in guidebooks and travel magazines of the time and the role of the state in the early 1920s and into the Nanjing Decade, when new administrative laws led to the continued expansion of the city under both municipal and county officials. They explore the revival of the silk industry during the Japanese occupation and the industry's role in driving urbanization, as well as efforts by Chinese leaders to carry out prewar development plans despite lockdowns and qingxiang (clean the countryside) campaigns. In the midst of the barbed wire and watch towers, plans to shape the built environment in Wuxi County and the region as a whole persisted and were carried out. Ambitious and well researched, Urbanizing China in War and Peace will appeal to scholars and students of Chinese urban history, the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance, and the Republican period. Its engagement with issues of urbanization in general will interest urban historians of other times and places.


Book Synopsis Urbanizing China in War and Peace by : Toby Lincoln

Download or read book Urbanizing China in War and Peace written by Toby Lincoln and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2015-05-31 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urbanizing China in War and Peace rewrites the history of rural-urban relations in the first half of the twentieth century by arguing that urbanization is a total societal transformation and as important a factor as revolution, nationalism, or modernity in the history of modern China. Linking the global and the local in space and time, China's urbanization was not only driven by industrial capitalism and the expansion of the state, but also shaped how these forces influenced daily life in the city and the countryside. Although the conflict that beset China after the Japanese invasion in 1937 affected the development of cities, towns, and villages, it did not derail previous changes. To truly understand how China has emerged as the world's largest urban society, we must consider such continuities across the first half of the twentieth century—during periods of war as well as peace. The book focuses on Wuxi, a city that lies a hundred miles to the west of Shanghai. In the early twentieth century local industrialists were responsible for it quickly becoming the largest industrial city in China outside treaty ports. They built factories, roads, and other infrastructure outside the old city walls and in surrounding towns and villages. Chapters examine the county's transformation as recorded in guidebooks and travel magazines of the time and the role of the state in the early 1920s and into the Nanjing Decade, when new administrative laws led to the continued expansion of the city under both municipal and county officials. They explore the revival of the silk industry during the Japanese occupation and the industry's role in driving urbanization, as well as efforts by Chinese leaders to carry out prewar development plans despite lockdowns and qingxiang (clean the countryside) campaigns. In the midst of the barbed wire and watch towers, plans to shape the built environment in Wuxi County and the region as a whole persisted and were carried out. Ambitious and well researched, Urbanizing China in War and Peace will appeal to scholars and students of Chinese urban history, the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance, and the Republican period. Its engagement with issues of urbanization in general will interest urban historians of other times and places.