Overview

This book translates and contextualizes the recollections of men and women who built, lived, and worked in some of the factory compounds relocated from China’s most cosmopolitan city—Shanghai. Small Third Line factories became oases of relatively prosperous urban life among more impoverished agricultural communities. These accounts, plus the guiding questions, contextual notes, and further readings accompanying them, show how everyday lives fit into the sweeping geopolitical changes in China and the world during the Cold War era. Furthermore, they reveal how the Chinese Communist Party’s military-industrial strategies have shaped China’s economy and society in the post-Mao era. The approachable translations and insight into areas of life rarely covered by political or diplomatic histories like sexuality and popular culture make this book highly accessible for classroom use and the general-interest reader.

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9783030996901

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Reviews

“Xu and Wang have provided an eminently useful collection of translated first-hand accounts and have made an invaluable contribution to the study of labour history in Maoist China. The editors’ inclusion of guided questions and activities provide for an especially useful teaching resource for students with a keen interest in approaching 20th-century Chinese history, especially the Mao era, from below.” (Matthew Galway, The China Quarterly, February 6, 2023)

Author Information

Xu Youwei is Professor of History at Shanghai University, China. Y. Yvon Wang is Associate Professor of History at the University of Toronto, Canada. 

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