This volume corrals the efforts of 12 scholars in the history of science to challenge the narrative of intellectual stagnation during the Cultural Revolution. Contributors use case studies to reveal that scientists who could apply their work to the needs of the common people aligned their intellectual endeavors with communist ideology and secured state funding. Chapters explore the intricacies of work in fields as diverse as calculus, physics, aerospace engineering, health care, agricultural engineering, demography, and social science to illustrate significant advances despite political setbacks. Scholars featured here acknowledge that bending academic pursuits to the desires of the state restricted intellectual life, but move beyond this assessment to explore the areas in which notable strides occurred. Moreover, contributors note that certain projects, including the creation of China's first satellite in 1970, the barefoot doctor movement of 1968 to 1981, and the nationwide implementation of the one-child policy were communist initiatives. This book puts to rest any claim that the communist state was anything but thoroughly committed to the promotion of science and technology, and continues the assessment of this work on its own terms without reference to foreign standards. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers/faculty, and professionals.

Choice Reviews

[The] collection represents a fresh and daring effort to explore the true impact of the Cultural Revolution on Chinese science, technology, and medicine. It brings out some new and inspiring papers and should stimulate more comprehensive and more profound investigations.

Technology and Culture

This volume is perhaps the richest, most sustained interdisciplinary exploration available of the current historiography of a crucial period in the history of science in modern China.

Carla Nappi, The University of British Columbia

This volume brings together the best of Western and Chinese scholarship on a crucial subject: How science and revolution affect and transform each other. Scrupulously researched, and boldly argued, these essays shed new light on many aspects of science (from mathematics to cosmology) with a genuinely comparative perspective in mind.

Vera Schwarcz, Wesleyan University; author of Colors of Veracity: A Quest for Truth in China, and Beyond

Anyone interested in Mao's China or in the history of science in modern China will want to read this book. It offers a fresh look at the complex and multifaceted relationship between science and the Cultural Revolution.

Fa-ti Fan, State University of New York at Binghamton