Twentieth Century China: A History in Documents / Edition 2

by R. Keith Schoppa

Overview

The twentieth century was a time of great change in China's government, economy, culture, and everyday life. Twentieth Century China, Second Edition, chronicles this period of revolutions and uprisings with the words and images of the participants. This is the story of the people—leaders and followers—whose decisions propelled modern Chinese history in erratic directions. Using a wide variety of primary sources, including official reports and public statements, articles, political posters, cartoons, poetry, songs, and advertisements, R. Keith Schoppa paints a picture of a society undergoing drastic changes, both social and political. Mao Zedong's personal physician recalls the phenomenon of backyard steel furnaces and the changes they brought to the Chinese landscape during Mao's Great Leap Forward; a poem written in 1979 expresses anger toward a general who destroyed a kindergarten to build a mansion on its site; and the box from the Chinese version of Monopoly, introduced in 1987, playfully illustrates the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin.

This second edition of Twentieth Century China also includes an updated introduction with a note on sources and interpretation, thirty-seven new sidebars, twelve new photographs, and updated further reading and websites.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199732005
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	10/22/2010
Series:	Pages from History Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

R. Keith Schoppa is Edward and Catherine Doehler Chair in Asian History at Loyola University, Maryland. He is the author of several monographs and textbooks on Chinese history, including Blood Road (1998), which won the Association for Asian Studies 1997 Levenson Prize for the best book on twentieth-century China.

Table of Contents

What is a Document?
How to Read a Document
Introduction
Notes on Sources and Interpretation

Prologue: The Boxer Catastrophe
China and the West

1: An Old World Dies; A New One is Born
The Revolutionary Movement
Ending Traditions

2: The Slide into Chaos
The Presidency of Yuan Shikai
Warlords

3: Forming a New Culture: The May Fourth Movement
Political Activity
A Cultural Revolution
The Russian Model

4: Which Way Do We Go?: Revolution in the 1920s
A Growing Consumer Culture
The Legacy of Sun Yat-sen
Revolution

5: The Nanjing Decade
Social Currents
One Day in China
Political and Military Realities

6: Communist Resurgence
The Jiangxi Soviet and Its Demise
Literature and Dissent

7: China at War: The Fight Against Japan
Japan's "New Order in Asia"
Chinese Collaboration
War Crimes
War Years, a Western View

8: Civil War
Sources of Guomindang Defeat
Evaluations of the Civil War

9: The Mao Years
Mao, the Leader
Social Revolution
The Great Leap Forward
The Cultural Revolution and After

10: Picture Essay: The Cult of Mao Zedong

11: "To Get Rich is Glorious": The Reforms of Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin
Reforms of Deng Xiaoping
Impact of Reform

12: Political Authoritarianism
Political Dissent
The Falun Gong

13: China and the World at the Turn of the Century
Ending the Imperialist Era
Taiwan and Tibet
The United States and China
Human Rights

Timeline
Chinese Pronunciations
Further Reading
Websites
Text Credits
Picture Credits

Index

Editorial Reviews

Gr 9 Up-Schoppa presents a fast-paced narrative of the last century using well-chosen excerpts from key primary sources: speeches, treaties, journalism, poems, letters, laws, etc., tied together with concise and informative editorial commentary. The picture on the front cover-a bridge connecting old and new China-exemplifies the book's visual component; it is replete with black-and-white cartoons, posters, photos, and reproductions, all of which are telling and memorable. Relevant and important portions of text have been condensed from lengthy tomes into digestible and understandable pieces. The final chapter, on China and the world today, partially sums up what has preceded it. Captions, selected quotations in sidebars, marginal glosses, text and picture credits, and a pronunciation guide all add to this well-organized book's utility and educational value.-Patricia D. Lothrop, St. George's School, Newport, RI Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal