Violence in China

Essays in Culture and Counterculture

Edited by Jonathan N. Lipman & Stevan Harrell

Subjects: Chinese Studies
Series: SUNY series in Chinese Local Studies
Paperback : 9780791401156, 249 pages, April 1990
Hardcover : 9780791401132, 249 pages, April 1990

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Table of contents

Preface

One     
Introduction

Stevan Harrell

Two
Lineage Feuding in Southern Fujian and Eastern Guangdong under Qing Rule

Harry J. Lamley

Three
Ethnic Violence in Modern China:
Hans and Huis in Gansu, 1781–1929

Jonathan N. Lipman

Four
Sectarian Eschatology and Violence

Richard Shek

Five
Violence and Buddhist Idealism in the Xiyou Novels

Frederick Brandauer

Six
Urban Violence during the Cultural Revolution:
Who Is to Blame?

Anne F. Thurston

Seven
The Politics of Revenge in Rural China during the Cultural Revolution

Richard Madsen

Eight
Violence against Women in Contemporary China

Christina Gilmartin

Glossary

Contributors

Index

Description

In this volume, Lipman and Harrell explore the prevalence and ubiquity of violence in China, a society whose official norms value harmony and condemn conflict. The book investigates violence in a wide variety of situations through the sweep of history and in contexts ranging from the family to the national polity.

The book explores motivations for violence from both a historical and a contemporary perspective. Historically, the authors cover bloody religious rebellions in premodern times, the depiction of violence in traditional popular novels, ethnic strife between Muslims and Han Chinese in the Northwest, and feuding local communities in the Southeast. Modern China is depicted by analyses of rural and urban violence in Mao's Cultural Revolution and an examination of continuing domestic violence. This depiction of the cultural themes and motivations for violence allow lessons drawn from specific contexts to be applied to the nature of Chinese culture in general.

Jonathan N. Lipman is Associate Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College. Stevan Harrell is Professor of Anthropology and International Studies and Director of the Arts and Sciences Honors Program at the University of Washington.