In this cultural history, Paul Clark argues that the Cultural Revolution was much more than disastrous chaos. Rather than being a wasteland in which the arts were limited to a handful of hyperpoliticized model works, in Clark's view, the period witnessed considerable artistic innovation and success. Reminiscent of Joseph Levenson's argument in Revolution and Cosmopolitanism: The Western Stage and the Chinese Stages (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971), Clark sees the Cultural Revolution not as a historical rupture, but as part of a long-term twentieth-century modernization project.

Clark's survey covers opera, film, theater, dance, fine arts, and literature. For Clark's purposes, “culture” does not include jokes, holidays, clothing, food, and other aspects of nonelite life. Thus, Clark's goal of going beyond elite politics to explore “what these years meant for the ordinary citizen” (p. 2) is stymied by his narrow definition of culture. Even so, Clark's book...

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