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1 results

  • 1911: The Unanchored Chinese Revolution*

  • Rana Mitter
  • Journal:
    The China Quarterly / Volume 208 / December 2011
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    05 January 2012, pp. 1009-1020
    Print publication:
    December 2011

  • 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.