The fact that Snow did not sneak into “red China” to gather information constituting the basis of his Red Start over China all alone is in many instances misunderstood even by scholars. Mao Zedong’s biography has been the subject of an international mountain of commentary in China and elsewhere. Biographies praising Mao and those slandering him are all based on the American journalist Edgar Snow’s (1905–1972) account in Red Star over China for the route Mao traveled from early childhood through his youth. How the “Red Star” Rose introduces the image of Mao and the biographical information made known to the world through the publication of Red Star, and with its publication the circumstances which they fundamentally undermined. Ishikawa Yoshihiro uses Mao Zedong as raw material to examine from whence and how ordinary historical information and images which we habitually use unconsciously come into being. He desires to help readers to reconsider the historicity of the generation of not only Mao’s image but of that of “historical materials.” -------------- With a title that evokes Gao Hua’s seminal study of Mao Zedong’s rise in the Chinese Communist Party, Ishikawa Yoshihiro asks two critical questions—What did the world know of Mao before the publication of Edgar Snow’s Red Star over China? How did Red Star change that understanding? With the meticulous research, careful documentation, and fair-minded judgment that characterizes all of Ishikawa’s work, he shows how little even Moscow and the Communist International knew about Mao before 1936. This study is full of unexpected insights into the origins of early visual images of Mao, the background to Snow’s historic trip to northern Shaanxi, and the evolution of the classic study that he left. In a world where balanced judgment of the rise of Mao is increasingly difficult to find, Ishikawa’s scholarship stands out as a rare model of judicious balance. —Joseph W. Esherick, Emeritus Professor, Hwei-chih and Julia Hsiu Chair in Chinese Studies, University of California, San Diego This book is, first, an exquisite excavation on the enabling infrastructures in the writing and publishing of one of the most iconic works in journalistic interviews in the 20th century, a text that broke through a wall of intelligence blockade to give to the world, in an autobiographical voice and with a striking image, the debut of the revolutionary Mao while holed up in a mountain base area. It is, in addition, a history of the reading of the book in multiple languages including Chinese that is indexed to the rise of the Mao cult thereafter. Ishikawa captures a moment of a past gearing up in anticipation of a future that never came. This book is a must-read for all with an interest in Mao, journalism, and the history of books. —Wen-hsin Yeh, Richard H. and Laurie C. Morrison Chair Professor in History, University of California, Berkeley Ishikawa offers a challenging reflection on how historical information and images that we take for granted come into being through the twin case studies of images of Mao Zedong before Edgar Snow’s famous biography in 1936 and then how Snow’s images of Mao were translated, and transmuted, into Chinese, Russian and Japanese. Joshua Fogel’s careful translation brings this impeccable example of Japanese sinology to the English reading public. —Timothy Cheek, Professor and Louis Cha Chair in Chinese Research, University of British Columbia

This work offers the most comprehensive account of the origin and consequences of the Yan'an Rectification Movement from 1942 to 1945. The author argues that this campaign emancipated the Chinese Communist Party from Sovietinfluenced dogmatism and unified the Party, preparing it for the final victory against the Nationalist Party in 1949. More importantly, this monograph shows in great detail how Mao Zedong established his leadership through this partywide political movement by means of aggressive intraparty purges, thought control, coercive cadre examinations, and total reorganizations of the Party's upper structure. The result of this movement not only set up the foundation for Mao's new China, but also deeply influenced the Chinese political structure today. The Chinese version of How the Red Sun Rose was published in 2000, and has had nineteen printings since then.

First published to enormous acclaim in 1973, this book became a classic that revolutionized the way children are taught to read and write poetry. The celebrated poet Kenneth Koch conveys the imaginative splendor of great poetry--by Blake, Donne, Stevens, Lorca, and others--and then shows how it maybe taught so as to help children write poetry of their own. For this edition, the author has written a new introduction and a special afterword for teachers.

There were two women in Zhenbao's life: one he called his white rose, the other his red rose. One was a spotless wife, the other a passionate mistress. Isn't that just how the average man describe a chaste widow's devotion to her husband's memory - as spotless, and passionate too? Maybe every man has had two such women - at least two. Marry a red rose and eventually she'll be a mosquito-blood streak smeared on the wall, while the white one is "moonlight in front of my bed." Marry a white rose, and before long she'll be a grain of sticky rice that's gotten stuck to your clothes; the red one, by then, is a scarlet beauty mark just over your heart. In Eileen Chang's eloquent and evocative novella, Zhenbao is a devoted son, a diligent worker, and guarded in love. But when he meets a friend's spoilt, spirited, desirable wife, he cannot resist her charms, or keep their relationship under his control. As he succumbs to passions and resentments, Red Rose, White Rose is both sensual and restrained.

This fall, as debates around nationalism and borders in North America reach a fever pitch, Aperture magazine releases "Native America," a special issue about photography and Indigenous lives, guest edited by the artist Wendy Red Star. "Native America" considers the wide-ranging work of photographers and lens-based artists who pose challenging questions about land rights, identity and heritage, and histories of colonialism. Several contributors revisit or reconfigure photographic archives--from writer Rebecca Bengal's look at the works of Richard Throssel and Horace Poolaw, to artist Duane Linklater's intervention in a 1995 issue of Aperture, "Strong Hearts," the magazine's first volume devoted to Native American photographers. "I was thinking about young Native artists," says Red Star, "and what would be inspirational and important for them as a road map." That map spans a diverse array of intergenerational image-making, counting as lodestars the meditative assemblages of Kimowan Metchewais and installation works of Alan Michelson, the stylish self-portraits of Martine Gutierrez, and the speculative mythologies of Karen Miranda Rivadeneira and Guadalupe Maravilla. "Native America" also features contributions by distinguished writers and curators, including strikingly personal reflections from acclaimed poets Tommy Pico and Natalie Diaz. With additional essential contributions from Rebecca Belmore and Julian Brave NoiseCat, as well as a portfolio from Red Star, the issue looks into the historic, often fraught relationship between photography and Native representation, while also offering new perspectives by emerging artists who reimagine what it means to be a citizen in North America today.