by Yang Jisheng ; edited and translated by Stacy Mosher & Guo Jian ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2021
A comprehensive history that belongs alongside The Gulag Archipelago as a denunciation of tyranny.
A potent and sprawling history of the Cultural Revolution, a little-understood and catastrophic decade in modern Chinese history.
Nearing 80, Yang participated in the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) as an actor in what was called the “Great Networking” and then became a journalist for the Xinhua News Agency. As he writes in this essential history, the revolution was initiated by Mao Zedong in a purported effort to purge the Communist Party of bureaucrats and enemies of his version of permanent revolution; instead, the decade of infighting only bolstered the bureaucracy and weakened the political power of the general populace. Said one higher-up, later purged, “I was Chairman Mao’s dog, and whomever he told me to bite, I bit.” But Mao’s greatest allies were the Red Guards, an organization—really, several organizations, sometimes at odds with each other—that had its origins in urban high schools. Imagine a political movement dominated by teenagers, and it’s clear that the path will be paved with dangers. Thousands of Chinese people were murdered, their bodies buried in rice paddies or stuffed into wells, an example of the “unprecedented brutality” of the period that the author captures so well. Eventually, Mao had to conclude that the Red Guards must be reined in, an effort that led to civil war. The revolution, Yang asserts, was doomed to fail, and he is now far from the true believer of old. “Even if we allow that Mao’s intentions were good,” he writes, “socialism, as a form of collectivism, is predicated on the obliteration of the individual and can be achieved only through the evil of coercion.” The conflict’s effect was contrary indeed, serving to end the faith of most Chinese in communism. Today, Yang writes, “social injustice and lack of upward mobility are causing people in the lower rungs of society to lose hope.”
A comprehensive history that belongs alongside The Gulag Archipelago as a denunciation of tyranny.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-29313-0
Page Count: 768
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Share your opinion of this book
More by Yang Jisheng
BOOK REVIEW
by Yang Jisheng & translated by Stacy Mosher & Guo Jian
by Alok Vaid-Menon ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 2, 2020
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Share your opinion of this book
More In The Series
by Shavone Charles ; illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky
by Leo Baker ; illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky
by Judith Butler ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 19, 2024
A master class in how gender has been weaponized in support of conservative values and authoritarian regimes.
A deeply informed critique of the malicious initiatives currently using gender as a political tool to arouse fear and strengthen political and religious institutions.
In their latest book, following The Force of Nonviolence, Butler, the noted philosopher and gender studies scholar, documents and debunks the anti-gender ideology of the right, the core principle of which is that male and female are natural categories whose recognition is essential for the survival of the family, nations, and patriarchal order. Its proponents reject “sex” as a malleable category infused with prior political and cultural understandings. By turning gender into a “phantasmatic scene,” they enable those in positions of authority to deflect attention from such world-destroying forces as war, predatory capitalism, and climate change. Butler explores the ideology’s presence in the U.S., the U.K., Uganda, and Hungary, countries where legislation has limited the rights of trans and homosexual people and denied them their sexual identity. The author also delves into the ideology’s roots among Evangelicals and the Catholic Church and such political leaders as Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán. Butler is particularly bothered by trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), who treat trans women as “male predators in disguise.” For the author, “the gap between the perceived or lived body and prevailing social norms can never be fully closed.” They imagine “a world where the many relations to being socially embodied that exist become more livable” and calls for alliances across differences and “a radical democracy informed by socialist values.” Butler compensates for the thinness of some of their recommendations with an astute dissection of the ideology’s core ideas and impressive grasp of its intellectual pretensions. This is a wonderfully thoughtful and impassioned book on a critically important centerpiece of contemporary authoritarianism and patriarchy.
A master class in how gender has been weaponized in support of conservative values and authoritarian regimes.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780374608224
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.