The Great Exodus from China
The Great Exodus from China
Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang examines one of the least understood migrations in modern East Asia - the human exodus from China to Taiwan when Chiang Kai-shek's regime collapsed in 1949. Peeling back layers of Cold War ideological constructs, he tells a very different story from the conventional Chinese civil war historiography that focuses on debating the reasons for Communist success and Nationalist failure. Yang lays bare the traumatic aftermath of the Chinese Communist Revolution for the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who were forcibly displaced from their homes across the sea. Underscoring the displaced population's trauma of living in exile and their poignant 'homecomings' four decades later, he presents a multi-event trajectory of repeated traumatization with recurring searches for home, belonging, and identity. This thought-provoking study challenges established notions of trauma, memory, diaspora, and reconciliation.
- Uncovers the painful aftermath of Chinese civil war from the perspective of those traumatized and displaced by it
- Discusses conflicting cultural traumas/historical memories between Taiwan and China
- Offers a powerful critique of the Eurocentric notions of trauma and memory
Awards
Winner, 2021 Memory Studies Association's First Book Award, The Memory Studies Association
Reviews & endorsements
‘Viewing mainlander Chinese as refugees, Yang breaks new ground in applying the lens of trauma studies to modern Chinese history, illuminating heretofore unexplored processes of ethnic identity formation leading them to become Taiwanese.' Madeline Y. Hsu, University of Texas, Austin
‘Yang provides a most compelling study of China in the 1949 crisis. Mapping out multivalent modernities across the political, historical, and psychic territories in Cold War China and Taiwan, he looks into the contested modes of memory through which Chinese people have reckoned with their experience from ideological confrontation to familial split, from exile to homecoming.' David Der-wei Wang, Harvard University
‘This book is an exceptionally careful and interesting study of the politics of memory by an author who is passionately engaged in this subject.’ Henrietta Harrison, Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Product details
September 2021Paperback
9781108746878
329 pages
228 × 150 × 19 mm
0.48kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. The exodus
- 2. Wartime sojourning
- 3. Cultural nostalgia
- 4. The long road home
- 5. Narrating the exodus
- Epilogue.
