Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era of High Socialism

by Jeremy Brown (Editor), Matthew D. Johnson (Editor), Jacob Eyferth (Contributor)

The Maoist state s dominance over Chinese society, achieved through such watersheds as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, is well known." Maoism at the Grassroots" reexamines this period of transformation and upheaval from a new perspective, one that challenges the standard state-centered view. Bringing together scholars from China, Europe, North America, and Taiwan, this volume marshals new research to reveal a stunning diversity of individual viewpoints and local experiences during China s years of high socialism.

Focusing on the period from the mid-1950s to 1980, the authors provide insights into the everyday lives of citizens across social strata, ethnicities, and regions. They explore how ordinary men and women risked persecution and imprisonment in order to assert personal beliefs and identities. Many displayed a shrewd knack for negotiating the maze-like power structures of everyday Maoism, appropriating regime ideology in their daily lives while finding ways to express discontent and challenge the state s pervasive control.

Heterogeneity, limited pluralism, and tensions between official and popular culture were persistent features of Maoism at the grassroots. Men had gay relationships in factory dormitories, teenagers penned searing complaints in diaries, mentally ill individuals cursed Mao, farmers formed secret societies and worshipped forbidden spirits. These diverse undercurrents were as representative of ordinary people s lives as the ideals promulgated in state propaganda."

Genres: China, History, Nonfiction

480 pages, Hardcover

First published October 13, 2015

About the author

Jeremy Brown (Chinese: 周傑榮) works as a professor in the Department of History at Simon Fraser University on the unceded, ancestral, traditional territory of the Tsleil-Waututh, Kwikwetlem, Squamish, and Musqueam peoples. His research focuses on the social history of the People’s Republic of China. From 2014 through 2021, Brown was part of a team of editors of Cambridge Studies in the History of the People’s Republic of China, a book series published by Cambridge University Press. He served as a board member on the Esherick-Ye Family Foundation between 2016 and 2021, and Brown is a member of the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme Selection Panel, 2017–2022, 2024–. He is a member of the PRC History Group Advisory Board.

Brown loves to run and enjoys racing, especially in middle-distance (800/1500/mile) and cross-country races; He ran one marathon during each of his three years as department chair.

Reviews

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection offers a very important intervention for the methodology of the field of PRC history. The introductory chapter strongly lays down the case for grassroots history of the Mao era. The contributions these authors brought to the field cannot be ignored and will continue to influence future scholarship in the field for time to come. It's a shame that the case for grassroots history and treating the Mao era as a topic of historical inquiry came right along when archival access and safety for foreign and domestic researchers have gotten much stricter. But with a new methodology, old sources can be studied in a new light.

Some amazing stories in here, too.