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Challenging the Mandate of Heaven: Social Protest and State Power in China
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Comments/Reviews
Description: Social science theories of contentious politics have been based almost exclusively on evidence drawn from the European and American experience, and classic texts in the field make no mention of either the Chinese Communist revolution or the Cultural Revolution--surely two of the most momentous social movements of the twentieth century. China's record of popular upheaval, moreover, stretches back well beyond this century, indeed all the way back to the third century B.C. This is a direct effect of the Confucian "mandate of heaven" which bestowed instant legitimacy on successful rebel leaders. This book, by bringing together studies of protest that span the Imperial, Republican, and Communist eras, introduces Chinese patterns and provides a forum to consider ways in which contentious politics in China might serve to reinforce, refine or reshape theories derived from Western cases.
Selected Contents:
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Pedators and Protectors: Strategies of Peasant Survival
2 Protective Rebellion: Tax Protest in Late Qing China
3 Heterodox Rebellion? The Mystery of Yellow Cliff
4 Predatory Rebellion: Bai Lang and Social Banditry
5 Skilled Workers and the Chinese Revolution: Strikes Among Shanghai Silk Weavers, 1927-1937
6 Labor Divided: Sources of State Formation in Modern China
7 Contradictions under Socialism: Shanghai's Strike Wave of 1957
8 Working at Cross-Purposes: Shanghai Labor in the Cultural Revolution
9 Rural Violence in Socialist China
10 Casting a Chinese "Democracy" Movement: Legacies of Social Fragmentation
Index
Review(s): Perry goes back into Chinese history to recount in rich detail the astonishing record of the rebellions, revolts, and mass movements that have repeatedly punctuated dynastic rule. ... Although she does not predict an end to communist rule, she makes it clear that the Chinese tradition of mass movements makes such an event plausible. Foreign Affairs
...No scholar has done more to illuminate the world of rebellions,successful and failed,than Elizabeth Perry....In this volume,several of her major essays and articles are collected together,something for which all who teach on China will be very grateful....This is an ideal book for students,because it brings together work which otherwise is dispersed, and it gives them a sense of the range of dissent within traditional and contemporary Chinese society. The China Review
...Filled with interesting stories,Perry's book is fun to read.If one is interested in Chinese History,this book provides fascinating narratives.If one is interested in China's labour history and peasant uprisings,the book is a highly informed introduction.Finally if one is interested in contemporary Chinese politics,the historical patterns revealed in the book surely offer a valuable lens.Perry's book is bound to command a large audience. The China Quarterly
Using a variety of sources and deploying extensive powers of analysis and narrative, Elizabeth J. Perry of Harvard examines key elements in Chinese history since the mid-nineteenth century. ...fascinating collection, the fruit of years of ground-breaking research... Times Literary Supplement
Those readers who are familiar with some or all of these articles in their original form will still profit from reading these essays together as a coherent whole in the present volume. For others who seek initiation into the complex history of social prostest in modern China, there could hardly be a better choice. Pacific Affairs
...fascinating collection, the fruit of years of ground-breaking research... Times Literary Supplement
    
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