Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World: A Concise History

Rebecca E. Karl

Published by Duke University Press 2010

Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World

A Concise History

Rebecca E. Karl
Edited by: Rey Chow , Michael Dutton , Harry Harootunian and Rosalind C. Morris

In the series Asia-Pacific: Culture, Politics, and Society

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393023

Overview
Contents

About this book

Describes Mao Zedongs life and thought in relation to the Chinese revolution and twentieth-century history.

Author / Editor information

Rebecca E. Karl is Associate Professor of History at New York University. She is the author of Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, and co-translator (with Xueping Zhong) of Cai Xiang's Revolution and Its Narratives: China’s Socialist Literary and Cultural Imaginaries, 1949-1966, all also published by Duke University Press. She co-translated and coedited (with Lydia H. Liu and Dorothy Ko) The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory.

Reviews

“Karl’s history offers readers a chance to see China as Mao might have seen it. She implicitly begs the reader to ask, what might Mao, whose portrait still looks out over Tiananmen Square, have thought of China as it rises today? And perhaps more importantly, does it matter? Given the proliferation of interest and intrigue surrounding Mao Zedong’s life, Karl’s history included, the CCP has done wonders to maintain the authority he created while forsaking the China he imagined.” - Angilee Shah, Zócalo Public Square

‘[A] reasonably balanced, clear-headed survey of the Great Helmsman’s career and influence. . . . [I]f I had a class of young students approaching the period for the first time, I’d consider this book a not inappropriate textbook to hand them. And by the same measure it can also be recommended to the educated general reader.” - Bradley Winterton, Taipei Times

“Rebecca Karl’s important new biography seeks to contextualize Mao within the history of his time, aiming to restore a degree of sanity in discussing his life and role, warts and all, as the father of modern China; and simultaneously to rescue the history of the Chinese Revolution from its detractors in the West and at home.” - Tariq Ali, New Left Review

“Rebecca Karl provokes both China scholars and the general public to reassess the Chairman once again. Karl’s book departs from the tendencies to either depoliticize Mao or sensationalize his private life for popular consumption by recentering contemporary discussions around his public role in making revolution.” - Jeremy Tai, Twentieth-Century China

“Unlike many other works, [Karl’s] book blends historical facts with cultural analysis, creating a work that is informative despite its brevity. . . . After bringing Mao’s life-story to a close, the author provides a succinct yet meaningful analysis of his legacies. . . . [T]his is a very useful introduction to the most important leader in modern Chinese history.” - Survival

“In this succinct and compact narrative of Mao’s personal and intellectual development, Rebecca E. Karl offers an impressive exposition of the formation and evolution of the theory and practice of the Chinese Revolution. Her analysis of ideological tenets in China's revolutionary movement is convincing and more sophisticated than other narratives of Mao’s life and thought.”—Ban Wang, author of Illuminations from the Past: Trauma, Memory, and History in Modern China

“Rebecca E. Karl has written a lively, readable account of Mao’s life and thought, showing how they fit into and affected the twentieth-century world.”—Delia Davin, author of Mao Zedong

“Karl’s history offers readers a chance to see China as Mao might have seen it. She implicitly begs the reader to ask, what might Mao, whose portrait still looks out over Tiananmen Square, have thought of China as it rises today? And perhaps more importantly, does it matter? Given the proliferation of interest and intrigue surrounding Mao Zedong’s life, Karl’s history included, the CCP has done wonders to maintain the authority he created while forsaking the China he imagined.”

-- Angilee Shah Zócalo Public Square

“Rebecca Karl provokes both China scholars and the general public to reassess the Chairman once again. Karl’s book departs from the tendencies to either depoliticize Mao or sensationalize his private life for popular consumption by recentering contemporary discussions around his public role in making revolution.”

-- Jeremy Tai Twentieth-Century China

“Rebecca Karl’s important new biography seeks to contextualize Mao within the history of his time, aiming to restore a degree of sanity in discussing his life and role, warts and all, as the father of modern China; and simultaneously to rescue the history of the Chinese Revolution from its detractors in the West and at home.”

-- Tariq Ali New Left Review

“Unlike many other works, [Karl’s] book blends historical facts with cultural analysis, creating a work that is informative despite its brevity. . . . After bringing Mao’s life-story to a close, the author provides a succinct yet meaningful analysis of his legacies. . . . [T]his is a very useful introduction to the most important leader in modern Chinese history.”

-- Survival

‘[A] reasonably balanced, clear-headed survey of the Great Helmsman’s career and influence. . . . [I]f I had a class of young students approaching the period for the first time, I’d consider this book a not inappropriate textbook to hand them. And by the same measure it can also be recommended to the educated general reader.”

-- Bradley Winterton Taipei Times

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface and Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
1. China in the World in Mao’s Youth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. From Liberal to Communist, 1912–1921 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
3. Toward the Peasant Revolution, 1921–1927 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
4. Establishing Revolutionary Bases from jinggangshan to yan’an, 1928–1935 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
5. Yan’an, the War of Resistance against Japan, and Civil War, 1935–1949 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
6. Stabilizing Society and the Transition to Socialism, 1949–1957 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
7. Great Leap and Restoration, 1958–1965 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
8. The Cultural Revolution politics in command, 1966–1969 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
9. The Cultural Revolution denouement and death of mao, 1969–1976 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
10. Reform, Restoration, and the Repudiation of Maoism, 1976–Present Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 214

eBook

Published: August 13, 2010
ISBN: 9780822393023