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The Lost Generation: The Rustication of China's Educated Youth (1968-1980) . MICHEL BONNIN (translated by Krystyna Horko ). Hong Kong : Chinese University Press , 2013. xxxix + 515 pp. $55.00. ISBN 978-962-996-481-8
Book Reviews
Between l962 and 1980, around 17.9 million zhiqing - educated or "sent down" youth - were dispatched to the countryside and border regions. During much of this period, urban youth were expected to transform themselves into peasants and spend the rest of their lives in rural China. In fact, many had already returned before Mao's death but from 1977 on, returns turned into a flood. By the end of 1980 only around a million still remained in the countryside. Bonnin estimates that the average term of service in the countryside was six years.
This book was first published in French in 2004 but appeared in English only in 2013. The long period that elapsed between the end of the programme, around 1980, and 2004 enabled the author to utilize the extensive sources that became available during the reform period. These include memoirs and fiction written by former zhiqing, numerous documentary collections and academic literature that has appeared in China. He also used the sources available while the movement was in progress, including interviews of zhiqing who had fled to Hong Kong. He found that their accounts "overwhelmingly" did not differ from the findings of his later mainland interviews and research sources (p. xxv). The author also drew in full on the secondary literature. The result is a rich, comprehensive book, full of excellent analysis and telling anecdotes. Bonnin's account is likely to be regarded as the definitive work on the subject for years to come.
The author devotes much attention to policy making and policy conflicts. The regime pursued four goals. First, in the urban sector, many school graduates could not continue their education, especially at the tertiary level, while jobs often could not be found for them. Second, and closely connected with the first goal was maintenance and reestablishment of order in the cities, the latter referring to the millions of demobilized Red Guards exiled in l968 and 1969....