Mao Zedong

This article examines the production of musical works for the Chinese orchestra during the Mao Zedong period between 1949 and 1976. It considers how certain seminal works were produced to propagate Mao's political thought, as well as the changes made to these works against the backdrop of broader political changes. I argue that Chinese music is not a monolithic entity, but a shifting set of diverse cultural productions and practices. This study suggests that the production and propagation of musical works under Mao's rule can be categorized into three periods, namely, the first period from the founding of the People's Republic of China to the dawn of the Cultural Revolution (1949-1966); the second period during the early part of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1971); and the third period during the latter half of the Cultural Revolution (1971-1976). By analyzing seminal musical works composed during the Mao period, my research will reveal how modern Chinese orchestral music was used as a political tool in the nation-building of the People's Republic of China.

This is a handout I made for a guest lecture I gave to a class at Stanford several years ago. Insofar as it gives a literary perspective on the topic, it may yet fill in some gaps in most treatments of the subject. The scheme for representing the meter is derived from Qi Gong 啓功 (see my Poetry of He Zhu, 2007).

In 1949, the Communist Party of China pledged that its approach to health care would differ markedly from that of the former Nationalist government and the "imperialist" West. For the next thirty years, under Mao's leadership, the People's Republic of China made improving the health of the entire population a central pillar of its policy. International health stakeholders came to view it as a statistical outlier in its ability to achieve better health outcomes with limited resources. The People's Health is the first systematic study of health care and medicine in Maoist China. Drawing on hundreds of files from rarely seen party archives and oral testimonies from experts, local cadres, and villagers across China, Zhou Xun shifts her historian's gaze away from official statistics towards the records of local institutions and personal memories that reflect and give voice to lived experiences. Through the everyday interactions of policy makers, national and local administration, and communities, Zhou illustrates the dynamic relationship between politics and health, and between individual lives and the political system. Presenting case studies of internationally acclaimed public health initiatives in the PRC - the anti-schistosomiasis campaign and the Barefoot Doctor program - this book offers the first thorough, politically neutral analysis of their background, execution, and national and international repercussions. Opening a unique window into the lives - and health care - of individuals living under communism, The People's Health examines the links between local interest, cultural sensibilities, resources, and abilities, exploring the often unforeseeable consequences of political planning and social engineering.

In the middle of the twentieth century, China's transnational connections flowed through the interaction of two ideologies that throughout the postwar era were at times in direct competition: consumerism and communism. In industrializing countries and their colonies, consumerism had actually begun to take hold during the first third of the twentieth century, as the spread of thousands of new consumer goods, the proliferation of discussions about them and the reorientation of social life around them had contributed to the formation of distinctive consumer cultures in urban settings around the world. But this new culture created tensions with other ideologies. Over the course of the century, ideas of nationalism, anti-imperialism, and ultimately communism were often directly opposed to new consumer lifestyles and individual consumer choices, leading governments to seek to impose limits on choice, a central pillar of consumerism, in the name of a purported higher ideology. In the early twentieth century, for instance, as the new notions of national belonging were applied to commodities, products were labelled 'national' and 'foreign,' and a nationalistic consumer culture developed around commodities themselves. Across the globe, through mass campaigns urging consumers to buy domestic products, consumption became a politicized act that brought suspicion upon-and even sanctioned attacks against-'unpatriotic' consumers who knowingly or even unwittingly bought imports. In ‘Compromising with Consumerism in Socialist China,’ Gerth addresses the question: What happened to Chinese consumer culture after the Communist victories in the Soviet Union, eastern Europe, and China?

The Cultural Revolution (CR), launched in 1966, saw a massive effort by the Maoist leadership to engineer the socialist transformation of Chinese society. The question of why the cultural revolution happened and why at that specific time, remain central to understanding how the campaign unfolded. While post-Mao historiography of the People’s Republic of China often identifies the CR as a period of grave economic and political setbacks, a close examination of the campaign suggests a picture of nuances beyond an oversimplification of power struggle and Mao Zedong’s cult of personality. Taking into account Mao’s incentives andthe particular historical context, the causes of the CR comprised both top-downincentives and popular agency. While Mao initiated the CR to restore revolutionary consciousness among the communist party and wider society, the widespread popular enthusiasm was largely inspired by people’s perceived class interests and the expression of group identities, discontent and achievement of different ends.

A long essay dealing with the work of Dutch artist Pedro Bakker published in the monographic book publication 'Pedro Bakker - Innocent' (Onomatopee 2016). Order at http://www.onomatopee.net/project.php?progID=d54de0c71338835882e53890178deae1

I start with looking back at Bakker's work made during a residency stay alongside the amsterdam highway organized by Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam in 2006. Through series of works, mainly large scale drawings, such as 'To Draw Politically' featuring a controversial representation of the assassinated Theo van Gogh, I finish with an expose on Bakker's series of works around Madame Mao. The latter text was printed as a separate insert to avoid censorship in China, where the book is also published.

Text in English and Chinese.
Thanks to Pedro Bakker, Hanne Hagenaars and Laurens ten Kate!

The chapter explores John Adams's musical language in Nixon in China.

This thesis aims assess the dramatic success of Nixon in China and examine the work’s place in twentieth century opera and American culture. The Introduction presents biographical material on the composer, librettist and director, followed by a discussion of their collaboration, and a brief summary of the performance history of the work. The opening chapter explores the libretto. Chapter Two examines John Adams’s musical language, including the basic procedures by which the music operates. Chapter Three discusses the critical reception of the opera with analyses of selected passages. The fourth and final chapter provides an examination of the place of Nixon in China in the history of opera and contemporary American culture.

Misunderstanding and misreading characterized China-US relations in an early and mid-twentieth-century narrative economy framed by distance, conflict, cultural distrust, xenophobia, and periods of closure. To exemplify these misapprehensions, the essay begins with a racist African American stereotype appearing in Mao Dun's novel Hong (1929) as a key to open discussion of political stereotyping. It then turns to consider W.E.B. Du Bois' 1959 visit to China, for which Mao Dun served as his host. The essay surveys Chinese-language newspaper coverage of the Du Bois visit, including public comment by Mao Dun, Guo Mururo, and other leading Chinese officials. Du Bois and his hosts shared a language of imminent revolutionary teleology, one that proclaimed the arrival of a new order. This rising revolutionary international order was to be guaranteed by collaboration between Africa and Asia, so Afro-Asian solidarity had become a central ideological tenet in post-revolutionary China and writers were harnessed to that goal. For their part, his Chinese hosts misunderstood the role Du Bois played as an intellectual avant-gardist and treated his visit as the arrival of an influential ally in US politics. In a major speech at Beijing University, Du Bois displayed a reciprocal misunderstanding of China as approaching social perfection and proclaimed it to be the leading global civilization. Mutual public acclaim enabled both China's government and Du Bois to frame each other through heroic stereotypes. Such misreading functioned by elevating one figuration to represent a socio-political whole. Despite errors of perception evidenced in the rhetoric, mutual misreading contributed to advancing conversation between two societies.

Adolf Hitler. Joseph Stalin. Benito Mussolini. Mao Zedong. Kim Il Sung. Vladimir Lenin. These cruel dictators wrote their names on the pages of history in the blood of countless innocent victims. Yet they themselves were once young people searching for their place in the world, dealing with challenges many of us face—parental authority, education, romance, loss—and doing so in ways that might be uncomfortably familiar.

Historian Brandon K. Gauthier has created a fascinating work—epic yet intimate, well-researched but immensely readable, clear-eyed and empathetic—looking at the lives of these six dictators, with a focus on their youths. We watch Lenin’s older brother executed at the hands of the Tsar’s police—an event that helped radicalize this overachieving high-schooler. We observe Stalin grappling with the death of his young, beautiful wife. We see Hitler’s mother mourning the loss of three young children—and determined that her first son to survive infancy would find his place in the world.

The purpose isn’t to excuse or simply explain these horrible men, but rather to treat them with the empathy they themselves too often lacked. We may prefer to hold such lives at arm’s length so as to demonize them at will, but this book reminds us that these monstrous rulers were also human beings—and perhaps more relatable than we’d like.

“Brandon Gauthier is that rare academic whose writing is both incisive and clear; even more than that, it is entertaining. Here he has chosen a subject that, on the face of it, isolates an alarming contradiction, one rarely confronted, that history’s worst butchers (he chooses Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Mao, and Kim Il Sung, but they stand for the full rogues gallery) were once cuddly infants, playful schoolchildren, and sexed up teenagers. The result is a book that is as enlightening as it is disturbing, in part because we get a fresh view of history’s criminals, more so because in them, we can also see ourselves.”

— Todd Brewster, New York Times best-selling author of The Century (with Peter Jennings) and Lincoln's Gamble

"Before Evil isn’t your average history. Written in a colloquial language. Like listening to an old friend, not a stuffy intellectual. It tells the story of some of history's most reviled men. Dictators and despots. As though they were the dorky teens we all once were. Brandon Gauthier has done a first rate job in dispelling the myth that these tyrants were anything other than human. Same as you and I."

— Steve Anwyll, author of Welfare (Tyrant Books)

“We mustn't forget the terrifying dictators who were behind the policies foreign and domestic that made much of the 20th century such a bloody hell for so many. But Brandon Gauthier in this meticulously researched, compellingly written, highly accessible volume shows why we need to remember them less as monstrous aberrations, more as human beings who ended up demonstrating the capability of our species for evil.”

— Bradley K. Martin, author of Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty

“Before Evil opens a compelling window into the humanity of some of the most tyrannical despots of the modern era. At times poignant, powerful, erudite, and even humorous, it reminds us that those we consider truly evil are still truly human, and that the lines between good and evil are not as simple as we might like to believe.”

— Mitchell Lerner, Professor of History and Director of the East Asian Studies Center at The Ohio State University

“Brandon Gauthier has written a powerful investigation into the myriad influences that created six of the most evil men in modern history. Before Evil deftly explains in stunning detail how Lenin, Hitler, Stalin Mao, Mussolini and Kim slowly turned from unremarkable children into authoritarian adults whose choices affected the course of the entire world. By asking readers to grapple with the humanity of men who are widely abhorred, Gauthier provides a fresh way to understand why these six leaders were able to wield power—and how dictators could use those same tactics to rise again.”

— Beth Knobel, Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University

“For the past 30 years I have worked as a psychological expert witness in murder cases and visited with children and youth in war zones around the world. I have struggled, as has Brandon Gauthier, to find a 'human' explanation for the psychological realities of violence and evil that I have encountered first-hand in prisons and refugee camps. His book is a significant contribution in that morally and emotionally challenging but necessary task. A fascinating book!”

— James Garbarino, Professor of Humanistic Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, author of Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them

“A lively yet rigorously researched inquiry into how and why some innocent little children grow up to become mass-murdering monsters.”

— Daniel Kalder, author of The Infernal Library: On Dictators, the Books They Wrote, and Other Catastrophes of Literacy

The Great Leap Forward created one of the most deadly famines in human history, with estimates of the death toll ranging from 35 to 45 million. Environmentally, the leap caused the deforestation of at least a third of China’s open forests. This essay will explore why the Great Leap Forward proved to be so disastrous in so many areas, and why it failed to accomplish any of the objectives it set out to achieve. First, the essay will address the historiographical debate surrounding whether or not there was any sense in the original economic plan. The logic of diverting from a Soviet-style economic plan will then be discussed in conjunction with the equally illogical policies that followed, and their subsequent implementation. The essay will consider the context of the Sino-Soviet split and the Hundred Flowers campaign. With reference to both of these, Mao’s dominance and tenacious attitude will be discussed as key factors for the eventual disastrous outcome of the Great Leap Forward.

The attitude in how Western classical music is perceived  has drastically changed since Mao was in power in China. So much so, that it has become a hub of classical music in the world. I chronicle some of the political and social changes that led to this about-face.

A speech by China's leader, Xi Jinping, at the Beijing Forum on Literature and Art in 2014 provides background to understand why the opening of a PRC film set in World War II, "The Eight Hundred," due to premiere on July 5, 2019, was canceled.  Comparisons with Mao Zedong’s 1942 Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art, and Lenin’s 1905 “Party Organization and Party Literature” seem apt.

Tratamos aqui de Jabbour como representante das ideias presentes no livro, espraiadas pelos seus veículos sociais. Dedicamos estas páginas a um debate com algumas das teses centrais de seu livro, como o caráter de Estado da China, a questão da coexistência harmônica entre modos de produção, a teoria da transição ao socialismo em nossa época, e qual a relação entre a China e o comunismo. Da mesma maneira, faremos apontamentos sobre seus pontos de contato com as teses de Domenico Losurdo sobre a China, e uma abordagem crítica do marxismo sobre as mesmas. *** Em sua peça "O Retábulo das Maravilhas", Miguel de Cervantes descreve a história de um grupo de teatro mambembe que, numa pequenina cidade do interior da Espanha medieval, tenta enganar o governador, o alcaide e alguns moradores ilustres com as mais absurdas ilusões de ótica. Nesse delicioso jogo imaginário, tributário do picaresco, os personagens avisam que irão apresentar um grande espetáculo em seu pequeno retábulo. Nessa cenificação, em que tudo é invisível e inexistente, a incapacidade de enxergar a representação era atribuída à natureza bastarda do espectador. Naturalmente, com uma ameaça assim, os espectadores inventavam as maiores mentiras para provar que enxergavam aquilo que não existia, para não serem tornados suspeitos aos olhos dos vizinhos. Elias Jabbour, estamos certos, não é um dramaturgo espanhol do "Século de Ouro". Mas a leitura do seu livro dá a sensação de que estamos entrando naquele retábulo das maravilhas cervantino. O espetáculo da

Resumo: A obra fanoniana é uma obra perpassada pelo problema político e por questões de reconhecimento na busca de uma apreensão mais ampla das totalidades que performam a situação colonial 2. No presente artigo buscaremos nos indagar sobremaneira sobre as questões de (ausência de) reconhecimento. Como se dá a construção do negro na situação colonial? Como lhe são negadas a um só tempo a identidade e a alteridade? Quais seriam suas vias de ruptura e tensionamento de acordo com Fanon? Tais respostas pressupõem um percurso que nos leve a compreender como, para citarmos Mbembe, o negro se tornou o cadáver da modernidade 3. Abstract: The Fanonian oeuvre is one trespassed by political issues as well as reconnaissance issues on a perenial quest for apreehension of the totalities that perform the colonial situation. In this present article we'll seek to question above all the (lack of) reconnaissance. How is the construction of black people and blackness in the colonial situation? How are they denied at once of both identity and alterity? Which are the ways they could brake free and tension this situation according to Fanon? Do such answers presuppose a course that lead us to understand how, to quote Mbembe, the black has become the cadaver of modernity?

The Sino-Indian border dispute has been effectively stalemated since the end of the 1962 Border War and remains a source of serious tension between the two Asian giants. Yet there were several instances throughout the 1950s and early 1960s when the two sides could have resolved their dispute amicably. Curiously, despite several detailed historical accounts on how the Sino-Indian border dispute developed, there has been few systematic theoretical accounts exploring why this occurred. To address this gap, I utilise poliheuristic choice theory to examine the choices of the both the key decision-makers of the time, Mao Zedong and Jawaharlal Nehru. Poliheuristic choice theory illuminates why both Mao and Nehru initially chose status quo policies before embracing either compromise or escalation policies, when faced with domestic pressure at home and ideological impulses.

无尽的资本主义 (中文版) of Unending Capitalism：在 20 世纪 80 年代，中国大陆和台湾之间存在差异，这是不可否认的，但我 如今已经不再把那些差异解释为“社会主义与资本主义”之间的差异。我清楚地 知道，如果继续采用我先前几本书中非典型文化史的方法论，可能会激起一些批

6 评。然而，我希望读者们可以跟随我的脚步，重新审视当代世界史，尤其是 1949 年以来的中国历史。简单地说，我希望我可以为毛泽东时代（从 1949 年起到 1976 年毛主席去世）提供一个非常不同的解释。但如果更进一步，我希望向读者们解 释一下我对毛时代做出重新解释的价值，包括以下五个方面：

第一，我认为现在是时候重新考虑我们用以理解毛时代的基本框架了。就在 近些年来，我们一直认为的“共产主义”对阵“资本主义”的冷战已经结束了。 随着冷战结束，我们对一些基本概念，尤其是“资本主义”一词的运用，进行重 新认识是很有价值的。美国和西欧的历史学家们一直在扩展资本主义的概念范畴。 而且我认为，世界其他地区的历史学家，尤其是在那些如中国一样被资本主义国 家压迫并被迫加入工业资本主义世界体系的地方，人们确实应该重新考虑，中国 是如何成为世界资本主义发展中的一部分的。

第二，当我们用“不断变化的工业资本主义变体”这一概念来看待中国，就 可以解释清楚之前一些矛盾的例证。即如果通过工业资本主义的概念来看毛时代， 就可以更多地解释历史，而不只是解释那些极端的事件。

我的解释并不是我的出发点。一开始，我采用了传统做法，试着把 1949 年 后中国发生的所有事都解释成“建设社会主义”的一部分。我甚至把我看到的贴 上“社会主义消费主义”的标签。但是有太多的事情不能被框进“社会主义中国” 的标准解释中。用“资本主义的变体”来解释这些历史材料更加合理。

另外，不管是在中国国内还是在世界范围内，都有太多关于毛时代政治经济 的一手和二手资料，指向了与我此处相似的解释。不可忽略的是，一些中国和外 国的观察家一直都在质疑“中国是一个社会主义国家”的解释。毕竟，将苏联以 及其他所有自称为“社会主义”的国家解释为各种资本主义形式的观点，已经有 了长达一百多年的历史。基于我掌握的历史材料，我认为这类评论为拼凑起更多 毛时代的历史，而非只关注历史中那些最极端的部分，提供了一个非常不同的、 更有说服力的思路。

本书提倡的方法论是，在研究中要尽量涵盖更广泛的人群和更多摘取自档案 文件、新闻、回忆录和网络博客等各个层面的例证。并且如果我们把中国的国家 政策理解为，这个国家一直沿着“国家—私人”的资本主义变体光谱反复地移动， 那么与“社会主义中国”论述相左的那部分历史，就会显得更加合理。

7 那些资本主义变体中的移动变化并没有在 1976 年毛泽东去世之后停止。我 的方法论还谈及了一个主要的历史学和政治问题：在 1976 年毛泽东去世之后的 那些年究竟发生了什么？当共产党的理论家高举“市场社会主义”和“中国特色 的社会主义”时，共产党抛弃了社会主义吗？1959 年中共在《共风》上宣称他们 离共产主义的目标只有几个月的距离。然而，当中共把这一时间表拉长至几个世 纪后，并继续宣称中国在“建设社会主义”时，我们仍应该相信中国在“建设社 会主义”吗？

本书认为，中国并不是直到 20 世纪 80 年代，邓小平支持扩大运用产品和劳 动的市场时才抛弃了共产主义革命。邓小平仅仅是比其他人，比如说 60 年代初 期和“文化大革命”之前做出尝试的决策者，在工业资本主义的制度安排里做了 更大和更长久的调整：他将制度安排从更多地依靠国家计划调整为更多地运用市 场，同时在所有制层面从更高比例的公有制转向增加私人对资本的控制，以此来 促进资本主义的无限制扩张。

第三，我还要质疑“社会主义中国”的解释，因为旧的“共产主义与资本主 义”的二元对立的概念，过分强调了双方的民族国家和政治精英都想灌输给人们 的东西。如果仔细思量，我们就会发现人们其实对共产党实际在进行的“社会主 义建设”早已心存疑惑。本书将揭示出，处于社会各阶层的人们都认识到了，共 产党的“平等主义”和对剩余的民主控制等社会主义论调，与它实际推行的资本 主义政策以及因此产生的更多不平等的现实之间，存在着矛盾。因此，我重新梳 理历史资料，并据此得出了新的结论。如今我们可以辩论“资本主义”和“社会 主义”概念的意义，但是我认为，去理解当时的人们是怎么想的也是十分重要的。

在我的研究过程中，我发现了弥漫在中国社会各地的怀疑。这些疑惑促使我 去质疑标准的解释。挖掘这些疑惑有助于我反驳标准解释里的预设，即无论实际 的政治经济如何，走在大街上的中国人民始终认为他们在“建设社会主义”。有 时人们的行为也传达了他们的疑惑：在工厂里罢工的工人们，或者在公有工厂里 节省自己体力只为之后在私人工厂里卖劳力的工人们。我们可以在这里发现受到 高度剥削的农村弱者通常采用的武器：藏匿、吃掉或偷窃粮食。所有这些行为都 表达了疑惑。其他时候，这些疑惑是直接的：例如 1965 年毛主席告诉著名的美 国记者斯诺，孩子们正在“否定”共产革命，“复辟资本主义”。

8 第四，将国家主导下的工业资本主义变体纳入工业资本主义的范畴，有助于 拓宽我们对工业资本主义的理解，并得到对资本主义更新一步的认识。

无论是在具体的哪一年，20 世纪的 50、60 和 70 年代的中国，都丝毫不像 我们认为的“资本主义”或是“消费主义”的状态。那时的中国是一个极度贫困 的国家。然而，尽管资本主义总是随着时间和地点不断变化，但是有一点永远不 变：资本主义总是需要新鲜和自由的输入，需要一个可以随意掠夺而不产生后果 的环境，需要大多数由成年和未成年女性承担的无薪家庭护理工作，需要被奴役 的人们，以及亟待被征服并整合进全球资本主义的新地方。如果忽略了在如纽约 和伦敦之类的全球资本主义中心之外的资本主义的非市场方面，那就忽略了维持 资本主义持续扩张的要素：新的输入。

除了把中国看作全球资本主义的一部分以外，我试着将资本主义的另一半内 容（需求或消费）涵盖进来以拓宽“资本主义”。从这个角度来看，我们更能看 到工业资本主义的不平等是如何展现出来的。

第五，我们知道，资本主义的无尽扩张，或者说发展主义，正在毁灭我们的 生物圈。好的历史学总是包括关于种族、社会性别、阶级和族群的类别分析。但 是面对当代史，现在的我们还必须再增加考虑气候危机及其对人类的生存威胁。

American scholars of Chinese history have generally explained the outcome of China's civil war (1945-1949) by reference to social, economic, and political factors rather than by looking at the conduct of the war itself. Recently, military historians have begun to shift the focus to Communist strategy and operations. However, the question of how the Chinese Communist forces made the transition from guerrilla to conventional warfare has still not received sufficient attention. Using Mao Zedong's theories of guerrilla warfare and Peter Senge's model of the " learning organization " to analyze Lin Biao's conduct of the war against the Nationalists in China's Northeast (Manchuria), we can better understand how the Northeast People's Liberation Army transformed itself from a force characterized by " guerrilla-ism " to the powerful army capable of defeating Jiang Jieshi's best troops. The Communists performed poorly when they first encountered American-trained Nationalist units in the Northeast. Lin Biao and his staff responded to defeat by devising principles of tactics which they applied in a series of campaigns beginning with the " Three Expeditions/Four Defenses " (winter 1946-47). The Communist forces continued to derive lessons from their experience and to incorporate those lessons into programs of education and training. As a result, they made great strides forward in terms of the coordination of infantry, artillery, and armor in order to be able to pull off a conventional combined arms operation on the scale of the Liao-Shen Campaign. The Communist forces would bring these strengths with them when they entered the Korean War in 1950.

As part of a larger project, this paper serves as an overview that examines how “ai” 愛 (love) as an affective concept made its way into the Chinese vocabulary, how it gained popularity at specific junctures in modern Chinese history, and the ways in which it has been adapted as a marker of modernity and a political discourse in Republican (1911–49) an  Communist China (1949–) in distinct ways. Although literary scholars have noted the significance of the shaping of love as an affective concept for the project of Chinese modernity, they mainly focus on the conceptions and interpretations of love in the literature, and with a time frame from late imperial (1368–1911) to Maoist China (1949–76). The few studies about love in post-Mao era usually attribute the sources of such affect to Christianity. My paper makes a fresh contribution in three aspects. First, I take a longer historical perspective, from the 1910s to the 2010s, and dedicate, secondly, a large part of my study to the decisive impact from revolutionary radicalism to popular religions on the formation of the discourse of state propaganda and everyday politics, rather than manifestations in the literature and sources from Christianity. Third, I study some of the most controversial political figures in modern China, including Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), Mao Zedong (1893–1976), and Xi Jinping (1953–), rather than intellectuals and writers only.

The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) is inextricably bound up with images of uncountable numbers of propaganda posters, and Red Guards. Poster production reached a climax during the period, turning the event into a media spectacle. Mao Zedong’s image graced millions if not billions of these posters, dominating all aspects of life. After Mao’s death in 1976, his veneration came to a halt. However, the new leadership realized that doing away with Mao was impossible. Over the years, posters have been replaced by television and online propaganda. With Mao’s likeness gracing Chinese banknotes, 'Grandpa Mao' now has become a sought-after commodity.

This book considers the uses of the portrait as an instrument of propaganda in both totalitarian regimes and democratic countries. Focusing on the last one hundred years and covering a wide range of countries around the globe, the volume also looks at the uses of portraiture by antagonistic groups as forms of resistance, derision and denunciation.

Abstract: "Modelled after the Chinese experience, the land reform undertaken by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam of 1953–56 is perhaps the most important domestic policy of the Vietnamese Communist revolution. Because of a scarcity of primary sources, however, very little is known about the influence of Chinese advisors on this policy. Luo Guibo's recommendations on mobilizing the masses to carry out land reform are one of the very few known documents drafted by a leading Chinese advisor to the Hanoi government. Translating and making this document available makes possible a rare glimpse of the Chinese perspective on and assessment of the situation in Vietnam in the early 1950s. It also illuminates one aspect of the influential role of Chinese advisors in Sino–Vietnamese relations during that decade, especially in the controversial land reform campaign."

Keywords: First Indochina War, Hồ Chí Minh, Trường Chinh, Luo Guibo, Chinese advisors, land reform, mass mobilization, Mao Zedong, Sino-Vietnamese relations

"Representations", N. 129, Winter 2015.

The essay analyzes the project of maintaining the body of V. I. Lenin in the Mausoleum in Moscow for the past ninety years, focusing on the unique biological science that developed around this project, and the unexpected political role this body has performed.

La Cina e gli sguardi. Impressioni d'Oriente ed Occidente. All'inizio è una nuova apparizione, fondata sul passato e poi, via via, si precisa e si impiega per molteplici usi: ricerca interiore ed esterna, mappatura del mondo, luogo di relazione e di confronto, all'interno della propria cultura e con le altre. Per la prima volta viene qui fornito un contributo italiano al dibattito internazionale: una proposta d'indagine storica, condotta secondo un innovativo metodo critico, sulla nascita e sul divenire della fotografia in Cina fino al 1979, sia dal punto di vista orientale che da quello occidentale. Si partecipa così a quel dialogo ininterrotto che ha contribuito a generare una visione comune, tra culture : così lontane e così vicine