History 384: Shanghai : Published Books of Primary Source Collections

A groundbreaking look at art made in China during the Cultural Revolution Although numerous books on the Cultural Revolution have been published, they do not analyze the profound shift in aesthetic values that occurred in China after the Communists took power. This fascinating book is the first to focus on artwork produced from the 1950s to the 1970s, when Mao Zedong was in leadership, and argues that important contributions were made during this period that require fuller consideration in Chinese art history, especially with relevance to the contemporary world.  Previously, historians have tended to dismiss the art of the Cultural Revolution as pure propaganda. The authors of this volume (historians, art historians, and artists) argue that while much art produced during this time was infused with politics, and individual creativity and displays of free thought were sometimes stifled and even punished, it is short sighted to overlook the aesthetic sophistication, diversity, and accessibility of much of the imagery.  Bringing together more than 200 extraordinary artworks, including oil paintings, ink scroll paintings, artist sketchbooks, posters, and objects from daily life, as well as primary documentation that has not been published outside of China or seen since the mid-20th century, this invaluable volume sheds new light on one of the most controversial and critical periods in history.

Forty years after China's tumultuous Cultural Revolution, this book revisits the visual and performing arts of the period - the paintings, propaganda posters, political cartoons, sculpture, folk arts, private sketchbooks, opera, and ballet.

"Originally issued as United States relations with China, with special reference to the period 1944-1949.

With newly expanded material, personal documents, social records, laws, and documents that historians mistakenly ignore, the sixth edition is even more useful than its classic predecessor.

These brilliantly colorful images of cultural celebration, industrial development, agricultural production, and revolutionary heroes were displayed in homes and public spaces across the country.Chinese Posters collects more than 150 of the most striking of these posters and offers background on their social and political context and production.

The Cultural Revolution in China was a time of upheaval and change. Millions of lives were disrupted and much effort was spent by the government and the Party to "reeducate" the populace through a great propaganda campaign. Posters, ceramic statues, Red Books, pins, and a myriad of other means were designed to get the message across. Now, after the opening of China to the West, these things are finding their way into the collector's market. In this remarkable volume, the history of an era and the material culture that it generated are shown in over 450 color images. They include 180 posters that set the tone as art and as propaganda. The iconography of the posters was used to rally the people around the programs and personalities of the Maoist regime. In addition there are hundreds of ceramic statues, "Little Red Books," awards, ration coupons, wall hangings, prints, and many other objects included that promoted the Cultural Revolution and sought to influence the Chinese people. For graphic artists, collectors, and Sino-historians, these items have growing importance. With its concise and informative history and beautiful color illustrations, this book provides an introductory guide to the meaning and value of a variety of the most common posters and artifacts to be found in markets in China and the West, along with brief explanations of their historical background and their current value.

Published in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Dianshizhai Pictorial provides a record of the new urban popular culture that emerged in Shanghai's foreign settlements during this period. Ye Xiaoqing has based this study on the Dianshizhai's detailed illustrations of everyday life at home, in commercial establishments, and in Shanghai's public areas. Her introduction to the more than one hundred drawings presented here points to the social background, lifestyle, and intellectual outlook of the Dianshizhai's literati writers and artists, the weakness of gentry control in the foreign settlements, and the commercialization and "modern" material culture that made Shanghai distinctive.

Drawing on previously closed archives that have since been made inaccessible again, Zhou Xun offers readers, for the first time in English, access to the most vital archival documentation of the famine.

This edition of Mao Zedong's writings provides abundant documentation in his own words regarding his life and thought. It has been compiled from all available Chinese sources, including not only the 20-volume edition published in Tokyo years ago, but many new materials issued in China since 1978, both openly and for internal circulation.

The Classic text on Communist Guerrilla warfare includes an excellent introduction by Brigadier General Samuel Griffith USMC who was also the translator. "In 1937 Mao...wrote a succinct pamphlet that has become one of the most influential documents of our time....the first systematic analysis of guerilla warfare...The widespread applicability of Mao's doctrine stems from his realization of the fundamental disparity between the agrarian, peasant-based society of China and that of pre-revolutionary Russia, or any urban society....he had to employ tactics and appeals appropriate to the peasant."

Whether one views Mao Zedong as a hero or a demon, the "Great Helmsman" was, undoubtedly, a pivotal figure in the history of twentieth-century China, a man whose life and writings provide a fascinating window on the Chinese experience from the 1920s onward.

This illustrated book provides an innovative reinterpretation of the Cultural Revolution through the medium of the poster - a major component of popular print culture in China.

In 1957 and 1958, Chairman Mao Zedong led China into two major experiments: the Hundred Flowers policy of encouraging literary and political free expression and the economic Great Leap Forward. Each was a disaster. Repression followed the first when it became clear that intellectuals would criticize the Communist Party itself; famine followed the second. During two crucial years when the movements were being initiated, however, Mao addressed various Party groups behind closed doors to explain the new policies and exhort compliance. Recorded at the time and collected for limited circulation in the 1960s by his admirers among the Red Guards, the speeches, question-and-answer sessions, and letters here translated have never before been published in China or the West. These new, candid materials revise our understanding of how the policies developed and reveal not only the extent of Mao's power but the startling flights his untethered thought could take. Introductory essays by Roderick MacFarquhar, Benjamin Schwartz, Eugene Wu, Merle Goldman, and Timothy Cheek provide a context for evaluating and interpreting the nineteen texts translated in this volume.

Written in 1948 and based on the author's personal experiences, reflects the life of peasants and the class struggle at the time of the implementation of land reform in north China.

In its period of slow decline from the late 18th into the early 20th century and throughout its 20th century revolution, one of the most important problems facing individual Chinese and China as a nation was choosing appropriate political, social, cultural, and economic identities as contexts and situations changed. This documentary history of 20th century China begins with the turn-of-the-century Boxer uprising to set the stage for understanding the choices at stake for 20th century Chinese.