Liu, Liyan. "Red Genesis: The Hunan First Normal School and the Creation of Chinese Communism, 1903-1921."(Book review)

• Author: Tian, Xiansheng

Liu, Liyan. Red Genesis: The Hunan First Normal School and the Creation of Chinese Communism, 1903-1921. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012.

There are numerous biographies of Chinese Communist Mao Zedong. At least three of them, by Jonathan Spence, Timothy Cheek, and Shaun Breslin, are conveniently located on my office bookshelf. It is not difficult for anyone interested in China to find more information about Mao and his comrades in virtually any library or via the Internet. Liyan Liu's work, however, is more than a biography. It provides an in-depth analysis of the origin of the Chinese communist movement. Through the author's painstaking research of archival documents, memoirs, newspapers, and other primary sources, the book answers several questions that have puzzled even the experienced China scholars. Where did the first generation of communists, such as Mao and his like-minded colleagues, get their ideas that would change China's fate? What propelled this group of young men and women to become determined communist fighters? Significantly, one could ask if there are any similarities between these young, ideologically-driven Chinese students of the early twentieth century and the revolutionary young people or radical extremists in developing countries in the contemporary world.

Liu, an Associate Professor of...