Professeur invité

The Tragedy of Liberation, 1949-1957

After a bloody civil war that followed the end of World War II, Mao Zedong  hoisted the red flag over Beijing's Forbidden City in 1949. Instead of liberating the country, the communists transformed China into one of the worst tyrannies of the twentieth century, sending at least five million civilians to an early grave and bringing misery to countless more.  Frank Dikötter talks about his latest book, which draws on newly opened  party archives, interviews and memoirs to interweave the stories of  ordinary men and women with the brutal politics of Mao's court.

Dans le cadre du séminaire de Xavier Paulès et David Serfass, La Chine républicaine (1912-1949): nouvelles approches historiques The Age of Openness, 1895-1949 mardi 2 juin de 13h à 15h en salle 8, 105 bd. Raspail.

The Age of Openness, 1895-1949

Despite decades of negative historiography about the republican era, the period from 1900 to 1949 was characterised by engagement with the world at all levels of society. The pursuit of openness was particularly evident in  four areas, namely in governance and the advance of the rule of law and
of newly acquired liberties; in freedom of movement in and out of the country; in open minds thriving on ideas from the humanities and  sciences; and in open markets and sustained growth in the economy. Arguably the country was at its most open and diverse in its entire  history on the eve of World War Two - in terms of politics, society, culture and the economy.

Crime and Punishment in Modern China

This talk will look at the development of the modern prison in China, from its appearance at the end of the nineteenth century to the spread of a sprawling labour camp system under communism.