Front cover image for The Battle For China's Past : Mao and the Cultural Revolution

The Battle For China's Past : Mao and the Cultural Revolution

Mobo Gao
A controversial polemic countering modern revisionist narratives demonising the Mao regime
eBook, English, 2008
Pluto Press, London, 2008
History
1 online resource (214 pages)
9781783716012, 9780745327808, 9781849643955, 9781281878861, 9786611878863, 9781435690967, 9781783716029, 9780745327815, 1783716010, 074532780X, 1849643954, 1281878863, 6611878866, 1435690966, 1783716029, 0745327818
1036792959
Cover; Title Page; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Debating the Cultural Revolution; Introduction: who is writing history and who are the Chinese?; The haojie discourse and the Cultural Revolution; Violence, brutality and causes; Constructive policies; Destruction of Chinese culture and tradition; Cultural Revolution and cultural creativity; What is the Enlightenment?; 2. Constructing history: memories, values and identity; Introduction: speech act of identification; From the wounded to the mentalité: the re-rehearsal of May Fourth. Be American citizens in thinkingSinological orientalism; Two whateverism; The politics of joining the civilized world; Media agenda and identification with the West; Memoirs, values and identification; The intellectual-business-political complex in contemporary China; Conclusion: memories, identity, knowledge and truth; 3. Constructing history: memoirs, autobiographies and biographies in Chinese; Introduction: scope and rationale; Memoirs, autobiographies and biographies in Chinese: a literature survey; The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Some common themes on Mao and the Cultural RevolutionMemories as history; Conclusion: discourse, narratives and memories; 4. Mao, The Unknown Story: an intellectual scandal; Introduction hyper-promotion of a book; Scholarship, what scholarship?; Misleading claims and absurd explanations; Further evidence of 'scholarship'; Further evidence of flaws and misleading claims; Logical inconsistency within the text; Mao, China's Hitler and Stalin; Fairy tale and how scholarship changes; Does it matter?; It does not matter so long as the politics is right. 5. Mao: the known story and the logic of denialIntroduction: Mao the known story, a general outline; Evidence of the known story; So what was the problem?; The famine death toll; The economy in the Mao era; The yardstick of Hitler: a favourite European comparison; Mao's personality: the known story; The logic of denial of the known story; Academic reception; Revolution: from farewell to burial; Furet and the French Revolution; Is revolution inevitable?; An alternative model of development; 6. How a medical doctor doctors history: a case study of Li Zhisui; Introduction. Expatriate Chinese memories
a literary phenomenonMemories and the politics of knowledge production; The book; Knowledge gap; Knowledge production and the market; The logic of the differences in two versions; Who is to be fooled and why?; Protests from the insiders; Was Li Mao's personal physician?; How much did the doctor know?; What did the medical doctor know about politics?; The politics of sex; History as doctored by the doctor and his US mentors: a critical analysis; Conclusion: history what history? 7. Challenging the hegemony: contrary narratives in the e-media (I)
Mao and the Cultural Revolution
English