Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material / B. Wang -- Understanding The Chinese Revolution Through Words: An Introduction / Ban Wang -- 1. Revolution: From Literary Revolution To Revolutionary Literature / Jianhua Chen -- 2. The Long March / Enhua Zhang -- 3. Rectification: Party Discipline, Intellectual Remolding, And The Formation Of A Political Community / Kirk A. Denton -- 4. Worker-Peasant-Soldier Literature / Xiaomei Chen -- 5. Steel Is Made Through Persistent Tempering / Xinmin Liu -- 6. Socialist Realism / Ban Wang -- 7. Political Lyric / Xin Ning -- 8. Writing The Actual / Charles A. Laughlin -- 9. Nowhere In The World Does There Exist Love Or Hatred Without Reason / Haiyan Lee -- 10. Promote Physical Culture And Sport, Improve The People’s Constitution / Xiaoning Lu -- 11. Typical People In Typical Circumstances / Richard King -- 12. Use The Past To Serve The Present; The Foreign To Serve China / Tina Mai Chen -- 13. Women Can Hold Up Half The Sky / Xueping Zhong -- 14. Let A Hundred Flowers Blossom, Let A Hundred Schools Of Thought Contend / Richard Kraus -- 15. They Love Battle Array, Not Silks And Satins / Tina Mai Chen -- 16. The Three Prominences / Yizhong Gu -- 17. Revolutionary Narrative In The Seventeen Years Period / Guo Bingru -- Bibliography / B. Wang -- Index / B. Wang.

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As China joins the capitalist world economy, the problems of social disintegration that gave rise to the earlier revolutionary social movements are becoming pressing. Instead of viewing the Chinese Revolution as an academic study, these essays suggest that the motifs of the Revolution are still alive and relevant. The slogan “Farewell to Revolution” that obscures the revolutionary language is premature. In spite of dislocations and ruptures in the revolutionary language, to rethink this discourse is to revisit a history in terms of sedimented layers of linguistic meanings and political aspirations. Earlier meanings of revolutionary words may persist or coexist with non-revolutionary rivals. Recovery of the vital uses of key revolutionary words proffers critical alternatives in which contemporary capitalist myths can be contested.