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1911: The Unanchored Chinese Revolution*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2012

Rana Mitter
Rana Mitter
Affiliation:
University of Oxford. Email: rana.mitter@chinese.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

One hundred years after the 1911 Revolution (Xinhai Revolution) in China, its meaning continues to be highly contested. Paradoxically, the more time that passes, the less certain either political actors or scholars seem to be about the significance of 1911 for the path of Chinese revolutionary history. This essay examines three phenomena: the appropriation of 1911 in contemporary political and popular culture; the use of 1911 as a metaphor for contemporary politics by PRC historians; and the changing meaning of 1911 over the past ten decades, particularly during the years of the war against Japan. The essay concludes that it is precisely the “unanchored” nature of 1911, separated from any one path of historical interpretation, that has kept its meaning simultaneously uncertain and potent.

Keywords

1911 revolutionXinhai revolutionYang TianshiYuan WeishiZhang KaiyuanChiang KaishekMao ZedongWang Jingwei
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 208 , December 2011 , pp. 1009 - 1020
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2011

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References

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