China Against the Tides, 3rd Ed. Restructuring through Revolution, Radicalism and Reform

Repeatedly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, China has, to use a phrase favored by Mao Sedong, moved against the tides of its own great history and of winder international forces. Sometimes it even challenged the waves of revolution that it had itself set in counter-motion to previous currents. Its state went from an imperial monarchy to a short-lived republic to authoritarianism to revolutionary state socialism to market Leninist structural reform. Its economy underwent repeated shifts from crisis to rapid growth. Its society and culture were sundered by imperialism, class struggle, war and modernization, including explosive urbanization, population movement, technological change and transformation of values. How can these changes be comprehended? What has been their effect on China, the world's most populous country? And what is their significance for the rest of the world?

Marc Blecher is Professor of Politics and East Asian Studies at Oberlin College. He is the author of Micropolitics in Contemporary China, Tethered Deer: Government and Economy in a Chinese Country, and dozens of articles on Chinese political economy and the grassroots politics of the Chinese people.