Category Archives: History

Confucius and the World He Created by Michael Schuman

resizeReviewed by John Butler

21 March 2015 — Bertrand Russell once remarked that he didn’t write about Confucius because he found the Chinese sage “boring.” If Lord Russell had lived long enough to have read this book, Continue reading

Book Review: Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China

thediplomat_2015-03-08_18-32-21-e1425903541595-386x351Jung Chang’s 2013 release, now available as an e-book, reflects on one of modern China’s most influential figures.
By Oliver Stuenkel
March 09, 2015

The Manchu Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) is generally thought of as Continue reading

Secret historians preserve past in China amid state amnesia

460xBy JACK CHANG and ISOLDA MORILLO

Mar. 11, 2015 10:23 PM EDT

In this photo taken Monday, Jan. 26, 2015, Xu Xing talks about his documentary film work at home in… Read more

BEIJING (AP) — In his small ground-floor apartment just a few blocks from Beijing’s landmark Bird’s Nest stadium, Chinese language teacher, writer and do-it-yourself documentary maker Xu Xing is urgently preserving what he can of China’s forbidden past.

Traveling usually by himself Continue reading

Is Mao Still Dead?

A ChinaFile Conversation

REBECCA E. KARL, MICHAEL SCHOENHALS, ANDREW J. NATHAN, RICHARD BERNSTEIN, HO-FUNG HUNG, SEBASTIAN HEILMANN , RODERICK MACFARQUHAR, JUDE BLANCHETTE, RICHARD H. SOLOMON, SUISHENG ZHAO, STANLEY LUBMAN02.12.15

454926918_0Kevin Frayer—Getty Images
Mao Zedong portraits for sale in a Beijing market. Continue reading

In Praise of Hu Feng-Why A Mao-Era Advocate for Artistic Freedom Matters Today

SHEILA MELVIN 01.06.15

(Wikimedia Commons)

Left, Hu Feng pictured in the 1950s; right, an arrest against Hu in 1955

Hu Feng (1902-85) is a name that most students of P.R.C. history have undoubtedly encountered at one time or another. I remember reading it for the first time years ago in Continue reading

LISTENING IS BELIEVING

DECEMBER 22, 2014 ISSUE

BY YIYUN LI

141222_r25931-320CREDIT ILLUSTRATION BY JASON HOLLEY

Be content with what you have. Desire nothing and nothing will be lacking. Continue reading

Studying in China during the Cultural Revolution

All this led to the emergence of a the Criticize Lin Criticize Confucius (Pi Lin Pi Kong) campaign, a campaign against a Communist general Continue reading

China’s Artists to Be Taught ‘Correct View’ in New Plan

02sino-ARTISTS2-articleLargeUnder a new program, artists would be sent to rural communities or revolutionary sites to absorb socialist values. In Yan’an, the Communist base where Mao Zedong delivered his talks on the arts in 1942, a tourist in Red Army garb has her photo taken in front of an image of Mao.GILLES SABRIE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
By AMY QIN

DECEMBER 2, 2014

In a project that echoes the Cultural Revolution, Continue reading