The May Fourth movement (1915-1923) is widely considered a watershed in the history of modern China. This book is a social history of cultural and political radicals based in China's most important hinterland city at this pivotal time, Wuhan. Current narratives of May Fourth focus on the ideological development of intellectuals in the seaboard metropoles of Beijing and Shanghai.
And although scholars have pointed to the importance of the many cultural-political societies of the period, they have largely neglected to examine these associations, seeing them only as seedbeds of Chinese communism and its leaders, like Mao Zedong. This book, by contrast, portrays the everyday life of May Fourth activists in Wuhan in cultural-political societies founded by local teacher and journalist Yun Daiying (1895-1931).
The book examines the ways by which radical politics developed in hinterland urban centers, from there into a nation wide movement, which ultimately provided the basis for the emergence of mass political parties, namely the Nationalist Party (Guomindang) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The book's focus on organizations, everyday life, and social networks provides a novel interpretation of where mechanisms of historical change are located.
The book also highlights the importance of print culture in the provinces. It demonstrates how provincial print-culture combined with small, local organizations to create a political movement. The vantage point of Wuhan demonstrates that May Fourth radicalism developed in a dialogue between the coastal metropoles of Beijing and Shanghai and hinterland urban centers.
The book therefore charts the way in which seeds of political change grew from individuals, through local organizations into a nation-wide movement, and finally into mass-party politics and subsequently revolution. The book thus connects everyday experiences of activists with the cultural-political ferment which gave rise to both the Chinese Communist party and the Nationalist Party.
Review: Among the notable strengths of this book is Rahav's thoughtful interrogation of sources such as Yun's diary ... and careful recounting of how Yun graduated from social clubs to political parties. By rejecting historical teleology, Rahav offers readers a model of political leadership based on intimate relationships between intellectuals and the masses, rather than a model of confrontational struggle as per the Cultural Revolution.
By examining sociability rather than ideology, Rahav explains the appeal of mass politics and the formation of social cohesion across diverse ideas in the May Fourth movement. * Margaret Mih Tillman, The Journal of Asian Studies * Rahav's study de-centers our understanding of May Fourth radicalism by training our attention on the 'hinterland metropolis' of Wuhan and by making the case that young intellectuals there emerged as political actors through socialization within intimate small group settings rather than through the mechanical embrace of prescriptive, path-defining ideologies. * Timothy Weston, author of The Power of Position: Beijing University Intellectuals and Chinese Political Culture, 1898-1929 * Shakhar Rahav takes a novel approach to the student-led May 4th Movement of 1919, an iconic struggle for change.
Rather than focusing on Beijing or Shanghai, he takes a close look at a significant provincial setting and zeroes in on the life story of an important but understudied individual. Perhaps most importantly, he provides a fine-grained look at patterns of sociability within the new organizations students formed and the way a different sort of mass politics began to emerge.
The result is a fresh and engaging account of a crucial turning point in modern Chinese history. Finished before idealistic young Hong Kong activists garnered headlines late in 2014, the book makes especially compelling reading while student-led protests in that city are still fresh in our minds. * Jeffrey Wasserstrom, author of Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China and China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to
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