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Shanghai Tai Chi offers a masterful portrait of daily urban life under socialism in a rich social and political history of one of the world's most complex cities. Hanchao Lu explores the lives of people from all areas of society - from capitalists and bourgeois intellectuals to women and youth. Utilizing the metaphor of Tai Chi, he reveals how people in Shanghai experienced and adapted to a new Maoist political culture from 1949. Exploring the multifaceted complexity of everyday life and material culture in Mao's China, Lu addresses the survival of old bourgeois lifestyles under the new proletarian dictatorship, the achievements of intellectuals in an age of anti-intellectualism, the pleasure that urban youth derived from reading taboo literature, the emergence of women's liberation and the politics of greening and horticulture. This captivating, epitomizing, and vivid history transports readers to history as lived on Shanghai's streets and back alleyways.
‘This is a very thoroughly researched study of Shanghai and its citizens’ everyday lives during the Mao period, with many vivid personal observations and reminiscences of interviewees and other sources, well illustrated with historic photographs.’
Michael Sheringham Source: Asian Affairs
‘The Mao years undoubtedly left their mark on the city and its people, but in Shanghai Tai Chi Hanchao Lu invites readers to regard these decades as an interruption, an extended but ultimately temporary flickering of the neon lights that once again illuminate its skyline.’
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham Source: The China Quarterly
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