In the 1960s and 1970s, around 17 million Chinese youths were mobilized or forced by the state to migrate to rural villages and China's frontiers. Bin Xu tells the story of how this 'sent-down' generation have come to terms with their difficult past. Exploring representations of memory including personal life stories, literature, museum exhibits, and acts of commemoration, he argues that these representations are defined by a struggle to reconcile worthiness with the political upheavals of the Mao years. These memories, however, are used by the state to construct an official narrative that weaves this generation's experiences into an upbeat story of the 'China dream'. This marginalizes those still suffering and obscures voices of self-reflection on their moral-political responsibility for their actions. Xu provides careful analysis of this generation of 'Chairman Mao's children', caught between the political and the personal, past and present, nostalgia and regret, and pride and trauma.

Winner, 2022 Choice Outstanding Academic Titles

‘Questioning the mythologizing of the Educated Youth experience as embodied by elites such as Xi Jinping, Bin Xu gives us well-rounded portraits of losers as well as winners of this Cultural Revolution policy, while making a major contribution to the sociological study of the construction and consequences of memory.'

Thomas Gold - University of California, Berkeley

‘Since it was first formulated in the 1920s by sociologist Karl Mannheim, the problem of generations has been notoriously difficult to study empirically. Yet Bin Xu has managed to capture China's recent generational story here without simplifying it unduly. Chairman Mao's Children is thus a model of sociological clarity and an important contribution to the literature on political culture, collective memory, and social change in China and beyond.'

Jeffrey K. Olick - University of Virginia

‘Chairman Mao's Children authoritatively and sympathetically analyzes current identity dilemmas and memory challenges of China's zhiqing generation, a generation of urban youth sent to rural villages in the 1960s and 70s. Beautifully written, theoretically sophisticated, and methodologically rigorous, Bin Xu reveals the multiple ways these individuals and their society do, and don't, come to terms with the consequences of such rupturing historical events.'

Robin Wagner-Pacifici - The New School for Social Research

‘… Xu’s study is a fresh experiment and an undoubted contribution to the already relatively mature research field of educated youth, as it not only fills academic gaps but also meets the needs of the general public.’

Jiawen Sun Source: The China Quarterly

‘… this book offers a vivid prospect of the often untold experiences of Zhiqing. Theoretically, Xu’s approach of seeing differently class in the past and class in the present also provides fellow researchers with a new framework to explore class-related issues in China’s society.’

Chong Liu Source: Europe-Asia Studies