In this book, Xuduo Zhao revisits the early twentieth-century Chinese revolution by focusing on two forgotten Cantonese socialists: Chen Gongbo and Tan Pingshan. By analyzing a host of previously untapped primary sources, Zhao discovers a social democratic approach within the newly founded Chinese Communist Party and argues that its decline marked a key moment in the Chinese communist movement. The study of these two figures, and the ebbs and flows of their lives, reflects and reveals the fundamental tensions in the Chinese revolution which have shaped China’s political trajectory to contemporary times and the broader political, social, and cultural landscapes of Republican China.

Through analysis of untapped sources, Xuduo Zhao tells the captivating stories of two forgotten Cantonese socialists and discovers a key moment in the history of the Chinese revolution, which has shaped China's political trajectory to the present day.

In Mandarins and Heretics, Wu Junqing explores the denunciation and persecution of lay religious groups in late imperial (14th to 20th century) China. These groups varied greatly in their organisation and teaching, yet in official state records they are routinely portrayed as belonging to the same esoteric tradition, stigmatised under generic labels such as “White Lotus” and “evil teaching”, and accused of black magic, sedition and messianic agitation. Wu Junqing convincingly demonstrates that this “heresy construct” was not a reflection of historical reality but a product of the Chinese historiographical tradition, with its uncritical reliance on official sources. The imperial heresy construct remains influential in modern China, where it contributes to shaping policy towards unlicensed religious groups.

"This book explores grassroots religious life under and after Mao in Rui'an County, Wenzhou of southeast China, a region widely known for its religious vitality. Drawing hitherto unexplored local state archives, records of religious institutions, memoirs and interviews, it tells the story of local communities' encounter with the Communist revolution, and its consequences, especially the competitions and struggles for religious property and ritual space. It demonstrates that, rather than being totally disrupted, religious life under Mao was characterized by remarkable variance and unevenness and was contingent on the interactions of local dynamics with Maoist campaigns-including the land reform, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. The revolutionary experience strongly determined the trajectories and development patterns of different religions, inter-religious dynamics and state-religion relationships in the post-Mao era. This book argues that Maoism was destructively constructive to Chinese religions. It permanently altered the religious landscape in China, especially by inadvertently promoting the localization and even (in some areas) expansion of Protestant Christianity, as well as the reinvention of traditional communal religion. In this vein, the post-Mao religious revival had deep historical roots in the Mao years, and cannot be explained by contemporary economic motives and cultural logics alone. This book calls for a renewed understanding of Maoism and secularism in the People's Republic of China"--

Why do political leaders often perform fatal miscalculations, take ill-considered actions, and indulge in ludicrous wishful thinking? This book seeks to shed light on these questions by conducting two related case studies from the vantage point of the science of human behavior--psychology. The first one analyzes the decision-making behavior and leadership style of Mao Zedong, a man who, in the words of historian Maurice Meisner, "conceived and led the most popular revolution in world history" only to squander its fruits by embarking on a series of catastrophic political projects that cost tens of millions of Chinese their lives. The second case study follows the path of Mao''s successor, Deng Xiaoping, who renounced his faith in Maoism and embraced a pragmatic decision-making approach that paved the way for China''s remarkable rise.This book is the result of five years of research. Despite being based on the author''s PhD dissertation, this work should be accessible to non-experts. The investigation begins in Chapter 1 with a historical overview of China''s accelerating decline throughout the nineteenth century. This introductory chapter depicts China''s so-called century of humiliation (1839-1949). It offers some context as to the repeated failures to achieve national rejuvenation over the decades. The psychological analysis starts in Chapter 2 with a detailed discussion of Mao''s restlessness. The author will argue that Mao was locked in a never-ending battle against recurring self-doubts, which left him with a constant need for reassurance--a need that he attempted to satisfy by seeking to overcome ever more formidable political challenges. This, in turn, condemned China to a state of uninterrupted mass political campaigns, which greatly interfered with the nation''s attempts at economic and social modernization. Chapter 3 analyzes why Mao''s colleagues went along with his utopian visions. The discussion here will demonstrate that the decision-making behavior of the Chinese leadership exhibited all the hallmarks of groupthink--a modus operandi whereby the yearning to retain the approval of one''s leader as well as one''s colleagues outweighs the desire to draft effective policies. Chapter 4 explores how and why Mao''s principal goal in life eventually shifted from building socialism in China to preventing an imaginary capitalist restoration--a shift that ultimately paved the way for the disastrous Cultural Revolution. The author interprets this shift in Mao''s narrative identity as a reaction to his repeated failure to advance the quest for modernization. Chapter 5 centers on Deng''s silent rebellion against Mao''s decision-making approach. The discussion here will showcase the power of self-reflection--a psychological exercise that subjects one''s past behavioral and thought patterns to ruthless scrutiny so as to learn lessons for the future. Having subsequently renounced his faith in Maoism and all other "isms," Deng espoused fact-based and practice-oriented decision making. Yet, this did not turn either him or the decision-making apparatus over which he presided into dispassionate robots. Beliefs and values, as shown in Chapter 6, still colored how Deng and his colleagues interpreted complex developments in China. These beliefs and values were shaped by the forces of personality, the power of worldviews, and the subjective manner by which different decision makers processed their past experiences. As a result, the senior leaders greatly differed in terms of their visions for advancing China''s quest for modernization. Chapter 7 concludes this book with a summary of the most important findings. It also elaborates on the question of how the developed hypotheses can be validated. Further, this chapter provides an overview of the most pronounced behavioral characteristics of both Mao and Deng.

Studies of China and Chineseness since the Cultural Revolution Volume 2: Micro Intellectual History through De-central LensesWhy have the influences of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (roughly 1966-1976) in contemporary China been so pervasive, profound, and long-lasting? This book posits that the Revolution challenged everyone to decide how they can and should be themselves.Even scholars who study the Cultural Revolution from a presumably external vantage point must end up with an ideological position relative to whom they study. This amounts to a focused curiosity toward the Maoist agenda rivaling its alternatives. As a result, the political lives after the Cultural Revolution remain, ulteriorly and ironically, Maoist to a ubiquitous extent.How then can we cleanse, forget, neutralize, rediscover, contextualize, realign, revitalize, or renovate Maoism? The authors contend that all must appropriate ideologies for political and analytical purposes and adapt to how others use ideological discourses. This book then invites its readers to re-examine ideology contexts for people to appreciate how they acquire their roles and duties. Those more practiced can even reversely give new meanings to reform, nationalism, foreign policy, or scholarship by shifting between Atheism, Maoism, Confucianism, and Marxism, incurring alternative ideological lenses to de-/legitimize their subject matter.

The author argues that the transformation of ideas and institutions in Hunan arounfd the turn of the twentieth century was brought about mainly by the orthodox Confucian literati and that imperialist penetration was largely the result of changes within the province.