This book translates and contextualizes the recollections of men and women who built, lived, and worked in some of the factory compounds relocated from China’s most cosmopolitan city―Shanghai. Small Third Line factories became oases of relatively prosperous urban life among more impoverished agricultural communities. These accounts, plus the guiding questions, contextual notes, and further readings accompanying them, show how everyday lives fit into the sweeping geopolitical changes in China and the world during the Cold War era. Furthermore, they reveal how the Chinese Communist Party’s military-industrial strategies have shaped China’s economy and society in the post-Mao era. The approachable translations and insight into areas of life rarely covered by political or diplomatic histories like sexuality and popular culture make this book highly accessible for classroom use and the general-interest reader.
Author(s): Youwei Xu, Y. Yvon Wang
Series: Palgrave Studies in Oral History
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 392
City: Singapore
Units, Measures, Currency, Ages, and Names
Acknowledgments
Contents
List of Figures
Translator’s Introduction
A Brief History of Shanghai’s Small Third Front
The Third Front: Assessments, Outcomes, and Narratives
About This Collection
Suggestions for Discussion, Debate, and Classroom Projects Using All or Part of the Book
Further Reading
Overviews of PRC History
Overviews of the Great Leap Forward
Overviews of the Cultural Revolution
Overviews of the Third Front
Other Materials and Resources
Memoirs and Autobiographies
Chapter 1: An Official Account of the Small Third Front in Guichi, Anhui
Translator’s Note
Questions for Discussion
Chapter 2: Going to the Small Third Front
Translator’s Note
Questions for Discussion
Further Reading
On the PRC’s “Class Background” System
On the “Sending Down” and Exile of Urban Dwellers
Chapter 3: On the Job
Translator’s Note
Questions for Discussion
Further Reading
Chapter 4: Material Life and Healthcare
Translator’s Note
Questions for Discussion
Further Reading
On Medicine and Healthcare
On Material Life
Chapter 5: Education, Media, and Culture
Translator’s Note
Questions for Discussion
Further Reading
On Literature, the Arts, and Popular Culture
On Education
On Media and Information
Chapter 6: Gender and Sex
Translator’s Note
Questions for Discussion
Further Reading
On Gender
On Sexuality
Other Materials and Resources
Chapter 7: Marriage, Reproduction, Family
Translator’s Note
Questions for Discussion
Further Reading
Chapter 8: Politics, Social Order, and Military Affairs
Translator’s Note
Questions for Discussion
Further Reading
On Social Order and Law Enforcement
On the Military and Militias
Chapter 9: Shanghainese vs. Locals
Translator’s Note
Questions for Discussion
Further Reading
On Workers and Industrial Culture
On Agriculture and Rural Life
On Rural–Urban Differences
Chapter 10: Appraisals and Critiques
Translator’s Note
Questions for Discussion:
Further Reading
On Environment and Ecology in the Mao era
On Post-Mao Social, Political, and Economic Transformations
On Remembering the Mao Era
Informant Biographies
Glossary
Index
