The End of the Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity
Challenging both the bureaucratic one-party regime and the Western neoliberal paradigm, China’s leading critic shatters the myth of progress and reflects upon the inheritance of a revolutionary past. In this original and wide-ranging study, Wang Hui examines the roots of China’s social and political problems, and traces the reforms and struggles that have led to the current state of mass depoliticization.
Arguing that China’s revolutionary history and its current liberalization are part of the same discourse of modernity, Wang Hui calls for alternatives to both its capitalist trajectory and its authoritarian past.
From the May Fourth Movement to Tiananmen Square, The End of the Revolution offers a broad discussion of Chinese intellectual history and society, in the hope of forging a new path for China’s future.
Arguing that China’s revolutionary history and its current liberalization are part of the same discourse of modernity, Wang Hui calls for alternatives to both its capitalist trajectory and its authoritarian past.
From the May Fourth Movement to Tiananmen Square, The End of the Revolution offers a broad discussion of Chinese intellectual history and society, in the hope of forging a new path for China’s future.
Paperback, 272 pages
ISBN: 9781844673797
August 2011
$22.95 / £11.99 / $28.50CAN
Other Editions
Ebook
ISBN: 9781844678136
August 2011
$18.99
Hardback, 272 pages
ISBN: 9781844673605
February 2010
$26.95 / £14.99 / $33.50CAN
Reviews
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“A central figure among a group of writers and academics known collectively as the New Left.”
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“One of China's leading historians and most interesting and influential public intellectuals.”
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“Wang Hui brings a distinctive Chinese voice to the discussion of globalization and neoliberalism.”
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“Our focus on the country’s future has led to a de facto collusion with the Chinese government in ignoring its past ... In The End of the Revolution, the leading Chinese critic Wang Hui offers an alternative: an undivided narrative of modern Chinese history which makes better sense.”
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“Immensely valuable.”
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“Wang Hui [is] one of the strongest critics of contemporary inequality and the marketization of society and politics in China. [This] nuanced and highly theorized investigation into the relationship between revolutionary traditions and the rise of neoliberal capitalism ... has implications beyond the field of China studies.”
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“The best book regarding Western misconceptions of contemporary China.”
Blog
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New Left Review-issue 80 out now
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Choice reviews Wang Hui's The End of the Revolution
In a new review for Choice, Wang Hui's The End of the Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity is described as "immensely valuable." -
"Depoliticization and the Chinese Intellectual Scene"—a review of Wang Hui's The End of the Revolution
In his review of Wang Hui's The End of the Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity, Alexander Day (Assistant Professor of Chinese History at Wayne State University) begins by describing Wang as "one of the strongest critics of contemporary inequality and the marketization of society and politics in China," and the book itself as a "nuanced and highly theorized investigation into the relationship between revolutionary traditions and the rise of neoliberal capitalism ... [a book that has] implications beyond the field of China studies."
