Want to know what books Roderick MacFarquhar recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Roderick MacFarquhar's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
In a startlingly vivid, strangely objective, personal narrative, Ma Bo, who was denounced as an "active counterrevolutionary" in 1968, opens a window on the Chinese psyche that no work of history can provide, telling a passionate tale of a humanity that survives against all odds--a tale of ideology and disillusionment that will speak to all readers. more In a startlingly vivid, strangely objective, personal narrative, Ma Bo, who was denounced as an "active counterrevolutionary" in 1968, opens a window on the Chinese psyche that no work of history can provide, telling a passionate tale of a humanity that survives against all odds--a tale of ideology and disillusionment that will speak to all readers. less 
Roderick MacFarquharThere are lots of memoirs – ‘I was a Red Guard’ and ‘I did this and I did that.’ What is strikingly consistent about most Red Guard memoirs is how un-guilty the authors are of any of the crimes, brutality and destructiveness that we know the Red Guards were guilty of. It seems that the authors were always disapprovingly looking on. There are exceptions, there is some frankness here and there, but... (Source)
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2
This book offers a pathbreaking study and an interpretation which radically undermines the standard view of Lin Biao as an ambitious politician who maneuvered his way to the top, adopted a radical position during the Cultural Revolution to promote his own interests, and eventually came undone by seeking to consolidate his own power and military dominance over the polity, thus leading to a vicious power struggle with Mao. more This book offers a pathbreaking study and an interpretation which radically undermines the standard view of Lin Biao as an ambitious politician who maneuvered his way to the top, adopted a radical position during the Cultural Revolution to promote his own interests, and eventually came undone by seeking to consolidate his own power and military dominance over the polity, thus leading to a vicious power struggle with Mao. less Roderick MacFarquharFrederick Teiwes and Warren Sun, both of whom teach in Australia, have produced a series of books looking back at the Maoist period and just after, trying to revisit ideas about what happened on certain major occasions, with access to Party historians and new materials. My own view, frankly, is that it’s probably a little early to write books, articles would have been better. But, nevertheless,... (Source)
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3
This pathbreaking book offers the first in-depth study of Chinese labor activism during the momentous upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. The authors explore three distinctive forms of working-class protest: rebellion, conservatism, and economism. Labor, they argue, was working at cross-purposes through these three modes of militancy promoted by different types of leaders with differing agendas and motivations. Drawing upon a wealth of heretofore inaccessible archival sources, the authors probe the divergent political, psychocultural, and socioeconomic strains within the Shanghai labor... more This pathbreaking book offers the first in-depth study of Chinese labor activism during the momentous upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. The authors explore three distinctive forms of working-class protest: rebellion, conservatism, and economism. Labor, they argue, was working at cross-purposes through these three modes of militancy promoted by different types of leaders with differing agendas and motivations. Drawing upon a wealth of heretofore inaccessible archival sources, the authors probe the divergent political, psychocultural, and socioeconomic strains within the Shanghai labor movement. As they convincingly illustrate, the multiplicity of worker responses to the Cultural Revolution cautions against a one-dimensional portrait of working-class politics in contemporary China. less Roderick MacFarquharThis book by Elizabeth Perry and Li Xun is very important. Elizabeth Perry has worked on Shanghai for many years and has had tremendous access to Shanghai archives – I’m sure not all the Party archives, but enormous access. What her book reveals is that Shanghai was very exceptional during the Cultural Revolution. We are used to the idea that the Red Guards wiped out whole administrations in... (Source)
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Joseph W. Esherick, Paul G. Pickowicz, Andrew G. Walder | 4.22
Based on a wide variety of unusual and only recently available sources, this book covers the entire Cultural Revolution decade (1966-76) and shows how the Cultural Revolution was experienced by ordinary Chinese at the base of urban and rural society. The contributors emphasize the complex interaction of state and society during this tumultuous period, exploring the way events originating at the center of political power changed people's lives and how, in turn, people's responses took the Cultural Revolution in unplanned and unanticipated directions. This approach offers a more fruitful way to... more Based on a wide variety of unusual and only recently available sources, this book covers the entire Cultural Revolution decade (1966-76) and shows how the Cultural Revolution was experienced by ordinary Chinese at the base of urban and rural society. The contributors emphasize the complex interaction of state and society during this tumultuous period, exploring the way events originating at the center of political power changed people's lives and how, in turn, people's responses took the Cultural Revolution in unplanned and unanticipated directions. This approach offers a more fruitful way to understand the Cultural Revolution and its historical legacies.
The book provides a new look at the student Red Guard movements, the effort to identify and cultivate potential “revolutionary” leaders in outlying provinces, stubborn resistance to campaigns to destroy the old culture, and the violence and mass killings in rural China.
less Roderick MacFarquharThis book is co-edited by two historians at UC San Diego and the same old Andrew Walder. Joseph Esherick and Paul Pickowicz started a year-long seminar for their graduate students, which a number of us spoke at, and these graduate students were then encouraged to go off and do their own research projects. And they really are extraordinarily interesting – and very revealing. There is one, which I... (Source)
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5
"Fractured Rebellion" is the first full-length account of the evolution of China s Red Guard Movement in Beijing, the nation s capital, from its beginnings in 1966 to its forcible suppression in 1968. Andrew Walder combines historical narrative with sociological analysis as he explores the radical student movement s crippling factionalism, devastating social impact, and ultimate failure.
Most accounts of the movement have portrayed a struggle among Red Guards as a social conflict that pitted privileged conservative students against socially marginalized radicals who sought to... more "Fractured Rebellion" is the first full-length account of the evolution of China s Red Guard Movement in Beijing, the nation s capital, from its beginnings in 1966 to its forcible suppression in 1968. Andrew Walder combines historical narrative with sociological analysis as he explores the radical student movement s crippling factionalism, devastating social impact, and ultimate failure.
Most accounts of the movement have portrayed a struggle among Red Guards as a social conflict that pitted privileged conservative students against socially marginalized radicals who sought to change an oppressive social and political system. Walder employs newly available documentary evidence and the recent memoirs of former Red Guard leaders and members to demonstrate that on both sides of the bitter conflict were students from comparable socioeconomic backgrounds, who shared similar largely defensive motivations. The intensity of the conflict and the depth of the divisions were an expression of authoritarian political structures that continued to exert an irresistible pull on student motives and actions, even in the midst of their rebellion.
Walder s nuanced account challenges the main themes of an entire generation of scholarship about the social conflicts of China s Cultural Revolution, shedding light on the most tragic and poorly understood period of recent Chinese history." less Roderick MacFarquharAndrew Walder, a sociologist at Stanford who wrote this book, has provided us with the first really detailed study of the Red Guard movement that we’ve ever had. There have been lots of books about the Red Guard movement; individual Red Guards who got out of China have written them. The most well-known is, of course, Jung Chang, who wrote Wild Swans,which was partly about her experience as a Red... (Source)
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