Shanghai Journal: An Eyewitness Account of the Cultural Revolution

Originally published in 1969, Shanghai Journal presents the first full-length account, by a foreign observer, of the early days of the Cultural Revolution in Shanghai and the seat of power of the Gang of Four. Neale Hunter--one of the few Westerners living in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution--bases his account both on first-hand experience as an English teacher with his wife at the Shanghai Foreign Languages Institute from 1965 to 1967 and on important primary sources, such as previously-unavailable wall-posters. The volume contains photographs taken by Hunter himself and a new introduction which reviews events that have occurred since the Cultural Revolution and Hunter's own much-altered views of China. This reissue of Shanghai Journal appears at a time when not only Chinese and Western scholars have begun to re-examine the Cultural Revolution, but also at a time when wide general interest in understanding this crucial era in China's recent political history has grown.