China today is poised to play a key role on the world stage, but in the early twentieth century the situation was very different. In this powerful new look at modern China, Rana Mitter goes back to a pivotal moment in Chinese history to uncover the origins of the painful transition from pre-modern to modern world.

Mitter identifies May 4, 1919, as the defining moment of China's twentieth-century history. On that day, outrage over the Paris peace conference triggered a vast student protest that led in turn to "the May Fourth Movement." Just seven years before, the 2,000-year-old imperial system had collapsed. Now a new group of urban, modernizing thinkers began to reject Confucianism and traditional culture in general as hindrances in the fight against imperialism, warlordism, and the oppression of women and the poor.

Forward-looking, individualistic, embracing youth, this "New Culture movement" made a lasting impact on the critical decades that followed: the 1940s, with the war against Japan and the civil war between the Nationalist Party and the Communists; the 1960s, with the bizarre, seemingly anarchic world of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution; and the 1980s, with the rise of a semi-market economy against the backdrop of continued single-party rule and growing inequality.

Throughout each of these dramatically different eras, the May 4 themes persisted, from the insanity of the Cultural Revolution to the recent romance with space-age technology.

China, Mitter concludes, still seems to be in search of a new narrative about what the country is, and what it should become. And May 4 remains a touchstone in that search.

"In his impressive and inventively researched book, Rana Mitter uses the May Fourth movement as a theme around which to explore China's bitter 20th century, with its repeated upheavals, foreign invasion and the death of more than 100 million people from man-made and natural disasters. He brings alive the promise felt by the intellectuals, journalists, writers and entrepreneurs who subscribed to the movement. The book is also peppered with excellent summaries of events to keep the non-expert reader up with what was going on, which is often at odds with the version propagated --and still largely accepted--after the communist victory of 1949."--Jonathan Fenby, Financial Times

"With compelling prose and insightful analysis, Rana Mitter paints a brilliant, lively portrait of the intellectual and political fervor behind the May Fourth Movement, and how it has shaped, and continues to shape, China's national identity. A Bitter Revolution is critical to understanding the soul of modern China."--Iris Chang, New York Times bestselling author of The Rape of Nanking and The Chinese in America

About the Author
Rana Mitter is Lecturer in the History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of St. Cross College. In addition to many books and journal articles, Mitter has contributed to documentaries on the History Channel and is involved in a forthcoming documentary on Kublai Khan.

Preview this book: A Bitter Revolution: China's Struggle with the Modern World

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A Bitter Revolution: China's Struggle with the Modern World
By Rana Mitter
Published by Oxford University Press, 2004
ISBN 0192803417, 9780192803412
357 pages

• Exciting account of how the politics and culture of China changed forever during the twentieth century
• Brings previously unheard voices from modern China to light, using a range of new and fascinating sources
• Shines a light on China's 'hidden history', e.g. China and Japan were not always enemies, and Communism was not inevitably destined to succeed in China
• Shows how the 1910s and 20s, traditionally regarded as progressive and liberal, hid the seeds of China's future political crises

Part I: Shock;
1. Flashpoint - Beijing, May Fourth, 1919;
2. A Tale of Two Cities: Beijing, Shanghai, and the May Fourth Generation;
3. Experiments in Happiness: Life and Love in New Culture China;
4. Goodbye Confucius: New Culture, New Politics; Part II: Aftershock;
5. A Land of Death: Darkness over China;
6. Tomorrow the Whole World Will Be Red: The Cultural Revolution and the Distortions of May Fourth;
7. Ugly Chinamen and Dead Rivers: Reform and the 'New May Fourth';
8. Learning to Let Go: The May Fourth Legacy in the New Millennium

Popular passages
I saw a film showing some Chinese, one of whom was bound, while many others stood around him. They were all strong fellows but appeared completely apathetic. According to the commentary, the one with his hands bound was a spy working for the Russians, who was to have his head cut off by the Japanese military as a warning to others, while the Chinese beside him had come to enjoy the spectacle. - Page 59

The most important thing, therefore, was to change their spirit, and since at that time I felt that literature was the best means to this end, I determined to promote a literary movement. - Page 59

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