The Power of Tiananmen: State-Society Relations and the 1989 Beijing Student Movement
Dingxin Zhao
Abstract
In the spring of 1989, more than 100,000 students in Beijing initiated the largest student revolt in human history. Television screens across the world filled with searing images from Tiananmen Square of protesters thronging the streets, massive hunger strikes, tanks set ablaze, and survivors tending to the dead and wounded after a swift and brutal government crackdown. This book treats these historic events. Along with grassroots tales and interviews with the young men and women who launched the demonstrations, it carries out an analysis of the many parallel changes in China's state-society r ... More
In the spring of 1989, more than 100,000 students in Beijing initiated the largest student revolt in human history. Television screens across the world filled with searing images from Tiananmen Square of protesters thronging the streets, massive hunger strikes, tanks set ablaze, and survivors tending to the dead and wounded after a swift and brutal government crackdown. This book treats these historic events. Along with grassroots tales and interviews with the young men and women who launched the demonstrations, it carries out an analysis of the many parallel changes in China's state-society relations during the 1980s. Such changes prepared an alienated academy, gave rise to ecology-based student mobilization, restricted government policy choices, and shaped student emotions and public opinion, all of which, the book argues, account for the tragic events in Tiananmen.
Keywords:
Beijing,
revolt,
Tiananmen Square,
protesters,
hunger strikes,
demonstrations,
state-society relations,
ecology,
student mobilization,
China
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2001 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780226982601 |
| Published to Chicago Scholarship Online: February 2013 |
DOI:10.7208/chicago/9780226982625.001.0001 |
