Red genesis
Subtitle: the Hunan Normal School and the creation of Chinese communism, 1903-1921
By: Liyan Liu
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Albany
Language: eng
Number of pages: 251
ISBN-13: 9781438445038
Subjects: Hunan Sheng di yi shi fan xue xiao; Educational change; Communism; History
Other titles: Hunan Normal School and the creation of Chinese communism, 1903-1921
Description: This work explores the critical but overlooked role modern schools played in sowing the seeds of revolution in the minds of students seeking modern education in the 1910s. The Hunan First Normal School was one of many reformed schools established in China in the early twentieth century in response to the urgent need to modernize the nation. Its history is a tapestry woven of traditional Chinese and modern Western threads. Chinese tradition figured significantly in the character of the school, yet Western ideas and contemporary social, political, and intellectual circumstances strongly shaped its policies and practices. Examining the background, curriculum, and the reforms of the school, as well as its teachers and radical students, Liyan Liu argues that China's modern schools provided a venue that nurtured and spread new ideas, including Communist revolution.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: the exceptional normal and the paradox of hunan; title: Reform in Hunan, 1895-1900; title: From Confucian academy to modern school; title: The milieu of first Normal, 1912-1919; title: Teaching the new culture: first Normal's faculty; title: Sage in residence: Yang Changji; title: Provincial scholars and young radicals; title: Education of a provincial radical: Cai Hesen.