Contest for Citizenship and Collective Violence During China's Cultural Revolution

'The Cultural Revolution is a challenging research topic in the field of contemporary Chinese studies. The attraction of this book is the introduction of the "citizenship" and "collective violence" concepts to analyze the Cultural Revolution in a political, sociological style. It succeeds in explaining the complex phenomenon of the subject.'

--Mori Kazuko, emeritus professor of Waseda University, Japan

'Yang Lijun examines how the state structured the institutional framework in a way that led groups to compete for their interests by inevitably hurting the interests of other groups. Changes in the leadership also reverberated through this structure in ways that further exacerbated tensions and led to violence. this carefully researched book provides a persuasive lens for viewing the tensions and violence in this critical period of PRC history.'

--Joseph Fewsmith, Professor of Boston University, US

'Yang Lijun's book develops an interesting institutional approach to the study of factional struggle and escalation of collective violence through this turbulent period of modern Chinese history. It deepens our understanding of the interaction between various factions as well as between factions and the political leadership.'

--Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

This book has been groundbreaking for scholars of the Cultural Revolution, but hitherto was only available in Japanese and Chinese. This edition allows English-language readers to access the work for the first time. The author explains how political struggles within the state, competing sectarian interests, and other complex factors intertwined to produce various forms of collective violence that had a major impact on the political, economic, and social order of the time.

Yang Lijun is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Public Policy at South China University of Technology. She studied social changes and movements in contemporary China.

Peter Cuthbert is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University - Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies. He has spent nearly three decades living in China with roles in the government, non-profit, and commercial sectors.