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Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement
Contributor(s): Walder, Andrew G. (Author)
ISBN: 0674064135     ISBN-13: 9780674064133
Publisher: Harvard University Press
OUR PRICE:   $31.68  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: March 2012
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | Asia - China
- Political Science | Political Ideologies - Communism, Post-communism & Socialism
- Social Science | Social Classes & Economic Disparity
Dewey: 951.056
Physical Information: 1.1" H x 6.1" W x 9.1" (1.00 lbs) 416 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - Chinese
- Chronological Period - 20th Century
- Chronological Period - 1960's
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

Fractured Rebellion is the first full-length account of the evolution of China's Red Guard Movement in Beijing, the nation's capital, from its beginnings in 1966 to its forcible suppression in 1968. Andrew Walder combines historical narrative with sociological analysis as he explores the radical student movement's crippling factionalism, devastating social impact, and ultimate failure.

Most accounts of the movement have portrayed a struggle among Red Guards as a social conflict that pitted privileged "conservative" students against socially marginalized "radicals" who sought to change an oppressive social and political system. Walder employs newly available documentary evidence and the recent memoirs of former Red Guard leaders and members to demonstrate that on both sides of the bitter conflict were students from comparable socioeconomic backgrounds, who shared similar--largely defensive--motivations. The intensity of the conflict and the depth of the divisions were an expression of authoritarian political structures that continued to exert an irresistible pull on student motives and actions, even in the midst of their rebellion.

Walder's nuanced account challenges the main themes of an entire generation of scholarship about the social conflicts of China's Cultural Revolution, shedding light on the most tragic and poorly understood period of recent Chinese history.


Contributor Bio(s): Walder, Andrew G.: - Andrew G. Walder is Denise O'Leary and Kent Thiry Professor of Sociology at Stanford University. His previous books include Fractured Rebellion, which won the Barrington Moore Book Award, and China Under Mao (both from Harvard). A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Guggenheim fellow, Walder has received grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Science, and the Ford Foundation.