Money, Morale and Mayhem: Economic and Emotional Landscapes in the Formation of Revolutionary China, 1946-1949

The lecture series “Unmasking the CCP: History, Politics, and Society in post-1949 China” is a pioneering initiative to delve into the complex and often obscured aspects of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since its establishment in 1949. This bold series aims to ‘unmask’ the realities that have been obscured by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s misinformation campaigns and overlooked in existing scholarship. It questions established narratives about the CCP and PRC, offering new perspectives on contemporary Chinese history. Featuring two lectures each semester, or four annually, the series will invite esteemed speakers from across the globe, including Hong Kong, France, and Australia. Their international perspectives are crucial for complementing American scholarship, highlighting viewpoints often underrepresented in domestic discourse.

Information about the second lecture is as follows:

Welcome Remarks: Prof. Derk Pereboom (Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, Arts & Sciences Senior Associate Dean for Arts & Humanities)

Lecture Title: Money, Morale and Mayhem: Economic and Emotional Landscapes in the Formation of Revolutionary China, 1946-1949

Speaker: Prof. Rana Mitter (S.T. Lee Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations at Harvard University)

Time: 4:45 to 6:15 pm on March 7, 2024

Venue: Physical Sciences Building 120

Registration link: https://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/overview/K030724a/

Talk Description: Money, Morale and Mayhem: Economic and Emotional Landscapes in the Formation of Revolutionary China, 1946-1949

Did the Communists win or the Nationalists lose the Chinese civil war?  This talk will reexamine this classic question with new evidence from diaries and memoirs of the period that examine how economic crisis and political disillusionment in the existing regime interacted with a new type of revolutionary identity.  It will discuss the immensely complex and ambiguous political atmosphere in the period leading up to 1949 and suggest that while the forces behind revolution were powerful, they contained the seeds of their own contradictions too.

Speaker Bio: Professor Rana Mitter

Rana Mitter is ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is the author of several books, including Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II (2013) which won the 2014 RUSI/Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature, and was named a Book of the Year in the Financial Times and Economist. His latest book is China’s Good War: How World War II is Shaping a New Nationalism (Harvard, 2020). His writing on contemporary China has appeared recently in Foreign Affairs, the Harvard Business Review, The Spectator, The Critic, and The Guardian.  He has commented regularly on China in media and forums around the world, including at the World Economic Forum at Davos. His recent documentary on contemporary Chinese politics “Meanwhile in Beijing” is available on BBC Sounds.  He is co-author, with Sophia Gaston, of the report “Conceptualizing a UK-China Engagement Strategy” (British Foreign Policy Group, 2020). He won the 2020 Medlicott Medal for Service to History, awarded by the UK Historical Association.  He previously taught at Oxford, and is a Fellow of the British Academy.