The People’s West Lake examines the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) efforts to reconfigure Hangzhou’s urban space, alter the natural environment in West Lake (Xihu), and refashion the city’s culture in post-1949 China. It pieces together five initiatives between the 1950s and the 1970s: the dredging of the lake, the construction of the public park of Watching Fish at the Flower Harbor (Huagang guanyu), the afforestation movement, the development of collectivized pig farming around West Lake, and the two campaigns to remove lakeside tombs. These projects were intended to generate visible and tangible results—a lake with a good depth, a scenic public garden, greener hills surrounding the lake, a growing swine population and rising productivity of fertilizer, and a tourist site cleansed of burial grounds—while also being readily subject to the Party’s propaganda. These initiatives were designed both to achieve economic, cultural, and ecological utilities and to forge and popularize a sense of socialist nationhood.

The CCP’s endeavor to fundamentally transform the West Lake area also opened up possibilities for both human and nonhuman actors to variously benefit from, get along with, and undermine the political authorities’ planning. This book thus emphatically foregrounds and unifies the agency of both humans and nonhuman entities that are not necessarily tied to intentionality, bringing into question the legitimacy of the human/nonhuman binary. Author Qiliang He explores the agency of both humans and nonhumans (including water, microbes, aquatic plants, the park, pigs, trees, pests, and tombs) to affect, deflect, and undercut the CCP’s sociopolitical programs, thereby diminishing the efficacy of state propaganda. Highlighting the nonpurposive agency of both actors problematizes the long-held resistance-accommodation paradigm, which presumes the resisters’ a priori subjectivities independent of the socialist system, in studying the state-society relationship in the People’s Republic of China. Using a project-based approach, The People’s West Lake gives the nature-human relationship in Mao’s China (best known as Mao’s “war against nature”) historical and cultural specificities to reexamine the PRC regime’s central planning and the issues related to it.

This unique work examines the role played by sexuality in the historical encounter between China and the West. Distinguished historian D. E. Mungello focuses especially on Western homosexuals who saw China as a place of escape from the homophobia of Europe and North America. His groundbreaking study traces the lives of two dozen men, many previously unknown to have same-sex desire, who fled to China and in the process influenced perceptions of Chinese culture to this day. Their individual stories encompass flight from homophobia in their home countries, the erotic attraction of Chinese boy-actors, friendships with Chinese men, intellectual connections with the Chinese, and the reorientation of Western aesthetics toward China.
Mungello explores historical attitudes and the atmosphere of oppression toward men with same-sex desire as he recounts the intensification of repression of queers in Europe and North America in the late nineteenth-century. He shows how China became a place of escape, a homosexual “land of Oz” where men could flee from the closets of their minds. Some traveled to China and lived there; others immersed themselves in Chinese culture at a distance. Most established long-term friendships and acted as cultural intermediaries who opened the aesthetic range of Western culture to a new sense of beauty and a fresh source of inspiration for poets, artists, and dramatists. Their “boys”—Chinese males whose services were available at low cost as messengers, rickshaw pullers, guides, cooks, entertainers, escorts, and prostitutes—were transformed into a universal metaphor of Chinese culture that lingers to this day. Indeed, outside men’s range of relationships, intellectual and physical, have had a profound impact in shaping the modern Western conception of China.

中國百年命運的劇變與滄桑 民國知識分子的希望與悔恨 最會說故事的歷史學家── 史景遷揚名立萬之作 「西方中國研究的里程碑。」 ──費正清 「史景遷的著作必須劃入《史記》的類別之內，是無可爭議的。」 ──余英時 ★《洛杉磯時報》歷史書獎 ★《紐約時報》年度十大非文學類好書 ★ 《中國時報》開卷一週好書 ★ 金鼎獎圖書類最佳翻譯獎 ★ 余英時專文作序．盛讚推薦 這是一本關於中國知識分子的故事，一齣波瀾壯闊的史詩悲喜劇，記錄下一八九五到一九八○年間劇烈變動的中國。從十九世紀末一群維新人士意圖改造清廷，到保皇與革命兩派導致清廷覆亡；從二十世紀初共和政府和軍閥割據的對立，到國民黨和共產黨鬥爭的大悲劇；從二十世紀中國土淪陷與光復，到中國政府激進的農村與文化改造。中國知識分子一方面是激起巨變的原動力，另一方面又被巨變的浪潮一一吞沒。這是中國史上空前絕後的一場悲劇，而在演出過程中又隨時透露出無奈而自嘲的喜劇意味。 史景遷精選少數最有代表性的人物作深入探討，交織成一幅中國精神面貌的整體圖像。其中以康有為、魯迅、丁玲等主線作為貫穿全書的「經」，秋瑾、沈從文、瞿秋白、徐志摩、聞一多、老舍六人則橫插在不同階段，構成了「緯」。在經緯交錯間，還有無數相關人物隨時進進出出，包括無可迴避的政治領導人孫文、蔣介石、汪精衛、毛澤東、周恩來、劉少奇、鄧小平；引領一時風騷的文化領袖鄒容、梁啟超、蔡元培、陳獨秀、李大釗、郭沫若、胡適、梁漱溟、茅盾、林徽音、胡風等；甚至外國訪者如羅素、泰戈爾、蕭伯納等也點綴其間。 書中觸及的每個人物，都有其獨特的生命風貌和生命力量，遠非「集體傳記」所能呈現的；史景遷藉其生花妙筆勾勒他們的人生，著墨知識分子在時代鉅變下，對自我定位的摸索與反省，也讓讀者瞭解一連串不尋常的事件，以及由這些事件堆疊構成的「中國革命」。當這群人物被捲入近代中國百年間的暴力和重生的過程中時，史景遷以歷史文化意涵豐饒的「天安門」之名，穿越一個世紀，召喚出繁花盛開的文人思想與時代精神。 全書命名為《天安門》，說明他已敏銳地察覺到： 天安門廣場的歷史功用正在發生驚天動地的變化， 甚至可以說，他已預見十年以後天安門前的屠殺慘劇。 ──余英時

從晚清到五四前後，是近代中國的思想巨變期之一。在這個巨變期中，「戊戌」、「辛亥」、「五四」是三個高峰，其中「五四新文化運動」更是一個改變思想氣候的晴天霹靂，影響之廣大、深遠，在整個中國歷史中少有能及。
本書收錄作者王汎森橫跨二十年的五四研究文章，圍繞討論「五四新文化運動」，除了講五四本身，同時也儘量涉及五四新文化運動的「前」、「後」、「左」、「右」；「前」指的即是與「起源」有關的部分，「後」指的是五四之後「主義時代」的來臨，探索「主義時代」如何為當時失去方向、感到茫然困惑的青年人提供一套新的藍圖。而所謂「左右」，則是指這個運動本身在實際歷史中擴散、浸染、薰陶，在生活、氣質、心態、人生觀、時間觀，乃至習癖、偏好，或對於事物優劣好壞的判斷等各方面的影響。作者冀能透過本書，探索這個巨變時期的心靈世界中，各種思想元素交互錯綜的意義。

An intimate and revelatory eyewitness account of two generations of students in China’s heartland, chronicling a country in the midst of tumultuous change through the prism of its education system
More than twenty years after teaching English to China’s first boom generation at a small college in Sichuan Province, Peter Hessler returned to Sichuan to teach the next generation. At the same time, Hessler and his wife enrolled their twin daughters in a local state-run elementary school, where they were the only Westerners in a student body of about two thousand. Over the years, Hessler had kept in close contact with more than a hundred of his former students, who were now in their forties. By reconnecting with these individuals—members of China’s “Reform generation” —while teaching current undergrads, Hessler was able to gain a unique perspective on China's incredible transformation over the past quarter-century.
In the late 1990s, almost all of Hessler's students were the first member of their extended families to become educated. Their parents were subsistence farmers who could offer little guidance as their children entered a brand-new world. By 2019, when Hessler arrived at Sichuan University, he found a very different China and a new kind of student—an only child whose schooling was the object of intense focus from a much more ambitious and sophisticated cohort of parents. Hessler’s new students have a sense of irony about the regime but mostly navigate its restrictions with equanimity, and embrace the astonishing new opportunities China’s boom affords. But the pressures of this system of extreme “meritocracy” at scale can be gruesome, even for much younger children, including his own daughters, who give him and his wife an intimate view into the experience at their local school.
In Peter Hessler’s hands, China’s education system is the perfect vehicle for examining what’s happened to the country, where it’s going, and what we can learn from it, for good and ill. At a time when anti-Chinese rhetoric in America has grown blunter and uglier, Other Rivers is a tremendous, indeed an essential gift, a work of enormous human empathy that rejects cheap stereotypes and shows us China from the inside out and the bottom up, using as a measuring stick this most universally relatable set of experiences. As both a window onto China and a distant mirror onto America and its own education system, Other Rivers is a classic, a book of tremendous value and compelling human interest.
这是一本关于中国心脏地带两代学生的亲密而揭示性记录，由一位观察了过去二十五年中中国剧变的作者何伟所撰写。

在中国经济腾飞的初期教授英语二十多年后，何伟回到四川省，教导下一代的学生。他的这段经历也在他的书《江城》中有所记录。同时，何伟和妻子将双胞胎女儿送入了当地一所国立小学，她们是唯一的西方学生。多年来，何伟与许多他在上世纪90年代教过的人保持密切联系。这些人如今已是四十多岁的中国“改革一代”。通过与这些人重聚，同时教导当代的大学生，何伟获得了一个独特的视角，目睹了中国令人难以置信的变化。

1996年何伟抵达中国时，他班上的几乎所有人都是第一代大学生。他们通常来自大型农村家庭，父母多为维持生计的农民，对孩子踏入全新世界几乎无法提供指导。到2019年，何伟来到四川大学，他见到的是一个截然不同的中国以及一种新的学生类型——独生子女，他们的教育是一个更加雄心勃勃的家长群体的重中之重。在四川大学，许多年轻人对体制抱有一种讽刺的态度，但大多数人平静地适应着体制的限制，并拥抱中国崛起带来的机会。然而，极度竞争的压力依然让人精疲力尽，甚至影响到更年幼的孩子——包括何伟的女儿们，她们的学校经历让他得以深入了解当地教育环境。

在何伟的笔下，中国的教育体系成了审视这个国家的过去、现在和未来的完美媒介，让我们从中汲取正面和负面的经验。在美国反华言论愈加尖锐和丑陋之际，《Other Rivers》是一本不可或缺的巨著，饱含深厚的同理心，摒弃了廉价的刻板印象，从内而外、从下至上地展示了中国。这本书既是对中国的窗口，也是对美国的镜子，堪称这位大师级作者的经典之作。