The second in a series of lectures, “Unmasking the CCP: History, Politics, and Society in Post-1949 China," is scheduled for April 10 and will feature Rana Mitter, the S.T. Lee Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Mitter will speak about “Money, Morale and Mayhem: Economic and Emotional Landscapes in the Formation of Revolutionary China, 1946-1949,”at 4:45 p.m. April 10, in Room 120 of the Physical Sciences Building. The event will also be livestreamed on eCornell. Register here to attend that livestream.
Mitter’s talk will re-examine the classic question, “Did the communists win or the nationalists lose the Chinese civil war?” He is bringing in new evidence from diaries and memoirs of the period and has examined how economic crisis and political disillusionment in the existing regime interacted with a new type of revolutionary identity during this period.
Mitter is the author of several books, including “Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II” (2013)—which was named a book of the year in the Financial Times and The Economist —and “China’s Good War: How World War II is Shaping a New Nationalism” (Harvard, 2020).
His writing on contemporary China has appeared in Foreign Affairs, the Harvard Business Review, The Spectator, The Critic and The Guardian and his recent documentary on contemporary Chinese politics "Meanwhile in Beijing" is available on BBC Sounds. Mitter won the 2020 Medlicott Medal for Service to History, awarded by the UK Historical Association and is a Fellow of the British Academy.
The first lecture in the “Unmasking the CCP” series took place March 7 and featured Andrew Walder, the Denise O'Leary & Kent Thiry Professor at Stanford University, speaking about “China Under Mao: A Revolution Derailed.” That talk is also available to view on eCornell.
The lecture series will continue in fall 2024 with:
- “The Gilded Cage: Techno-State Capitalism in China,” a talk by Yawen Lei, professor of sociology at Harvard University
- “Chinese capitalism plurality of production regimes: The case of the garment industry,” a talk by Gilles Guiheux, professor of history & sociology at Université de Paris, France
The lecture series is sponsored by various departments and programs, including the East Asia Program, part of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies; the Department of History; the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management; the Society for the Humanities; Cornell External Education; eCornell and Cornell IT.
