The Lost Generation: The Rustication of China’s Educated Youth (1968–1980)
English · 2013
Availability: In stock
About the Book
The Lost Generation is a vital component to understanding Maoism. The book provides a comprehensive account of the critical movement during which seventeen million young "educated" city-dwellers were supposed to transform themselves into peasants, potentially for life. Bonnin closely examines the Chinese leadership's motivations and the methods that they used over time to implement their objectives, as well as the day-to-day lives of those young people in the countryside, their difficulties, their doubts, their resistance and, ultimately, their revolt. The author draws on a rich and diverse array of sources, concluding with a comprehensive assessment of the movement that shaped an entire generation, including a majority of today’s cultural, economic, and political elite.
About the Author(s)/Editor(s)/Translator(s)
Michel Bonnin is Professor at L'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris. From 1991 to 1998 he was the director of the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China and editor-in-chief of China Perspectives, both of which he founded in Hong Kong. He is currently director of the Sino-French Academic Centre at Tsinghua University, Beijing. His primary areas of research are the social and political issues in the People's Republic of China. Bonnin has written extensively in French, English, and Chinese on the rustication movement of educated urban youth during the Maoist period.
Krystyna Horko is a freelance writer, translator and editor specialized in China-related issues. She graduated in Chinese studies from SOAS (London University) and obtained a British Council scholarship to China in 1976 where she studied in Beijing, Liaoning University (Shenyang) and then Nanjing University. She worked as a journalist and editor in Hong Kong before moving to Paris, where she earned a postgraduate diploma in Chinese sociology from EHESS, and a postgraduate degree in translation from ESIT.