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林慕蓮(Louisa Lim)
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The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Louisa Lim (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 295 ratings
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Finalist for the 2015 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism

Longlisted for the Lionel Gelber Award for the Best Non-Fiction book in the world on Foreign Affairs

An Economist Book of the Year, 2014

A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice

"One of the best analyses of the impact of Tiananmen throughout China in the years since 1989." --The New York Times Book Review

On June 4, 1989, People's Liberation Army soldiers opened fire on unarmed civilians in Beijing, killing untold hundreds of people. A quarter-century later, this defining event remains buried in China's modern history, successfully expunged from collective memory. In The People's Republic of Amnesia, Louisa Lim charts how the events of June 4th changed China, and how China changed the events of June 4th by rewriting its own history.

Lim reveals new details about those fateful days, including how one of the country's most senior politicians lost a family member to an army bullet, as well as the inside story of the young soldiers sent to clear Tiananmen Square. She also introduces us to individuals whose lives were transformed by the events of Tiananmen Square, such as a founder of the Tiananmen Mothers, whose son was shot by martial law troops; and one of the most important government officials in the country, who post-Tiananmen became one of its most prominent dissidents. And she examines how June 4th shaped China's national identity, fostering a generation of young nationalists, who know little and care less about 1989. For the first time, Lim uncovers the details of a brutal crackdown in a second Chinese city that until now has been a near-perfect case study in the state's ability to rewrite history, excising the most painful episodes. By tracking down eyewitnesses, discovering US diplomatic cables, and combing through official Chinese records, Lim offers the first account of a story that has remained untold for a quarter of a century. The People's Republic of Amnesia is an original, powerfully gripping, and ultimately unforgettable book about a national tragedy and an unhealed wound.
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  1. ISBN-13
    978-0199347704
  2. Edition
    1st
  3. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  4. Publication date
    May 5, 2014
  5. Language
    English
  6. File size
    4839 KB
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"One of the best analyses of the impact of Tiananmen throughout China in the years since 1989." --The New York Times Book Review

"Lim presents a sequence of sensitive, skillfully drawn portraits of individuals whose lives were changed by 1989...These portraits show us how the party tightly constrains those who defy it, but they also depict determined resistance and even suggest an optimism among those most directly affected by the events of 1989...[This book] enhances our sense of the human costs of suppressing the past." --Wall Street Journal

"[Lim] offers a series of meticulously (and often daringly) reported portraits of participants, the events of that night and what has followed." --The Economist

"Lim tells her stories briskly and clearly. She moves nimbly between the individuals' narratives and broader reflections, interspersing both with short, poignant vignettes." --New York Review of Books

"Lim's outstanding book skilfully interweaves a wide range of interviews in China with an account of the protests in Beijing and ends with the fullest report to date of the crackdown in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province." --Financial Times

"STUNNING and important...The People's Republic of Amnesia provides a powerful antidote to historical deception and a voice to those isolated by the truth." --Los Angeles Review of Books

"Louisa Lim peers deep into the conflicted soul of today's China. Twenty-five years after the bloody suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing, the government continues to deploy its technologies of forgetting -- censorship of the media, falsification of history, and the amnesiac drug of shallow nationalism -- to silence those who dare to remember and deter those who want to inquire. But the truth itself does not change; it only finds new ways to come out. Lim gives eloquent voice to the silenced witnesses, and uncovers the hidden nightmares that trouble China's surface calm." --Andrew J. Nathan, coeditor, The Tiananmen Papers

"For a country that has long so valued its history and so often turned to it as a guide for the future, the Chinese Communist Party's efforts to erase actual history and replace it with distorted narratives warped by nationalism, has created a dangerous vacuum at the center of modern-day China. With her carefully researched and beautifully reported The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited, Louisa Lim helps not only restore several important missing pieces of Chinese posterity that were part of the demonstrations in 1989, but also reminds us that a country which loses the ability to remember its own past honestly risks becoming rootless and misguided." --Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director, Center on US-China Relations, Asia Society

"In The People's Republic of Amnesia veteran China correspondent Louisa Lim skillfully weaves the voices that 'clamor against the crime of silence' to recover for our collective memory the most pivotal moment in modern China's history." --Paul French, author of Midnight in Peking

"Astonishingly Beijing has managed to obliterate the collective memory of Tiananmen Square, but a quarter-century later Louisa Lim deftly excavates long-buried memories of the 1989 massacre. With a journalist's eye to history, she tracks down key witnesses, everyone from a military photographer at the square to a top official sentenced to seven years in solitary confinement to a mother whose teenaged son was shot to death that night. This book is essential reading for understanding the impact of mass amnesia on China's quest to become the world's next economic superpower." --Jan Wong, author of Red China Blues and A Comrade Lost and Found

"A deeply moving book-thoughtful, careful, and courageous. The portraits and stories it contains capture the multi-layered reality of China, as well as reveal the sobering moral compromises the country has made to become an emerging world power, even one hailed as presenting a compelling alternative to Western democracies. Yet grim as these stories and portraits sometimes are, they also provide glimpse of hope, through the tenacity, clarity of conscience, and unflinching zeal of the dissidents, whether in China or in exile, who against all odds yearn for a better tomorrow." --Shen Tong, former student activist and author of Almost a Revolution

"Lim's intimate history of the events of 1989 deepens our understanding of what happened, and touches our hearts with its humanity. Where other writers succumb to describing history in impersonal terms, Lim brings the history to our doorsteps, reminding us that we aren't so different from those who lived and shaped history and tragedy. The People's Republic of Amnesia is a wholly original work of history that will alter how China in 1989 is understood, and felt." --Adam Minter, author of Junkyard Planet

"NPR's veteran China correspondent Lim shows how the 1989 massacre of student human rights protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square continues to shape the country today... A forceful reminder that only by dealing with its own past truthfully will China shape a decent future for coming generations." --Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Louisa Lim is an award-winning journalist who has reported from China for a decade, most recently for National Public Radio. Previously she was the BBC's Beijing Correspondent. She lives with her husband and two children in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00JMCZL56
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; 1st edition (May 5, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 5, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4839 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 281 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 295 ratings

About the author

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林慕蓮(Louisa Lim)

林慕蓮(Louisa Lim)

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Louisa Lim is an award-winning journalist who has reported from China for the past decade, most recently for National Public Radio. Previously she was the BBC's Beijing Correspondent.

She currently lives in Melbourne, Australia, where she is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Melbourne.

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4.6 out of 5 stars
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Customers find the book engaging and informative. They appreciate the insightful and thought-provoking content. The narrative is described as personal and compelling, with a remarkable chapter on a man. Readers praise the writing quality as well-written and succinct.

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19 customers mention "Readability"19 positive0 negative

Customers find the book readable and engaging. They describe it as a well-written, valuable read for anyone interested in China. The book is described as a quick, enjoyable read that covers an important subject.

"...It is a fairly quick read, and very well written...." Read more

"...The book can be a little cold at some spots, but otherwise, a good read." Read more

"...Was I wrong! This is a superb book. I am not a fast reader, but I finished it in one day. I learned new things in every chapter...." Read more

"...A friend suggested it to me. This is one of the best books I have ever read...." Read more

12 customers mention "Narrative quality"12 positive0 negative

Customers find the narrative engaging and personal. They appreciate the revealing details and insights into the events of June Fourth. The book provides an insightful account of a political turning point in modern Chinese history.

"This is an extraordinary book. It tells the story of June Fourth, or, what the international community often calls "the Tiananmen Massacre,"..." Read more

"Very good book describing the collective memory (or lack of) of the Tiananmen protests and the response from the peole who she had interviewed for..." Read more

"...'s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited by Louisa Lim is a deeply moving and intelligent account of the aftermath of the Tiananmen massacres,..." Read more

"...There is no greater courage, no greater grief. The chapter on Bao Tong is also remarkable...." Read more

11 customers mention "Insight"11 positive0 negative

Customers find the book informative and thought-provoking. They appreciate the research and context for the general reader. The perspective on the period is appreciated.

"...Very well written and researched. The book can be a little cold at some spots, but otherwise, a good read." Read more

"...: Tiananmen Revisited by Louisa Lim is a deeply moving and intelligent account of the aftermath of the Tiananmen massacres, and its lasting impact..." Read more

"Very informative. I thought I knew a lot about Tienanmen before, but this book gave me much new information...." Read more

"...Ms Lim writes with a masterful grace. Her work is insightful and thought provoking. I wish I could give this book more than 5 stars." Read more

9 customers mention "Writing quality"9 positive0 negative

Customers find the writing quality good and concise. They say it's a quick read.

"...It is a fairly quick read, and very well written...." Read more

"...Very well written and researched. The book can be a little cold at some spots, but otherwise, a good read." Read more

"...On a purely technical level, Ms. Lim is an outstanding writer -- in the same class as Iris Chang...." Read more

"This brave, searing, beautifully and sensitively written book builds, Bolero-like, quietly, through profiles of carefully selected Tiananmen "types"..." Read more

A chrysanthemum still flowers in Tiannemen Square
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Robert L. Moore
    5.0 out of 5 stars An Important Book Based on Amazingly Revealing Research
    Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    This is an extraordinary book. It tells the story of June Fourth, or, what the international community often calls "the Tiananmen Massacre," through the eyes of various individuals: a student demonstrator, a soldier, the mother of a slain student, and so on. It is a fairly quick read, and very well written.

    The most telling and inspiring chapter for me was the one focused on the Tiananmen Mothers, those Chinese women who, having lost a child to the People's Liberation Army's murderous rampage, have formed an organization that continues to press the Chinese government to admit to its wrongdoing and respond to their loss. There are so many touching and revealing details here. A particularly memorable one is the government's having placed a security camera over the spot where Ms. Zhang Xianlling's 19-year-old son was shot by the soldiers. The sole purpose of the camera is to deter her from her custom of revisiting the spot in memory of her murdered son. Additionally, whole platoons of security agents follow Ms. Zhang around every day. Often they don't even know why they are following her. One young female guard, after hearing from Ms. Zhang what the purpose of her assignment really was, walked off her post in disgust. What courage these Tiananmen Mothers have.

    The sad part of the story is that the Chinese government's efforts at hiding what happened in 1989 have been fairly successful where the younger generation of Chinese is concerned. Many are completely ignorant about the massacre.

    On the other hand, the massive and pervasive efforts that the government undertakes in order to keep its June Fourth massacre concealed from the public is an indication of just how frightened it is of the truth. I wonder what this implies for China's future.
    25 people found this helpful
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  • Julian Douglass
    4.0 out of 5 stars Very good book describing the collective memory (or lack of) of the Tiananmen protests
    Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Very good book describing the collective memory (or lack of) of the Tiananmen protests and the response from the peole who she had interviewed for the book. This to me was kind of like an oral history of the protests, since there really is no official one, but it is more This book not only explains what happened at the square, but the direction that China is headed in with its collective amnesia. Very well written and researched. The book can be a little cold at some spots, but otherwise, a good read.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Eric Maroney
    5.0 out of 5 stars Losing the Mandate of Heaven
    Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited by Louisa Lim is a deeply moving and intelligent account of the aftermath of the Tiananmen massacres, and its lasting impact on China. In fact, Lim makes a compelling case that Tiananmen was the pivot point around which modern Chinese history hinges. After the massacre, the state increasingly turned toward its own people as a threat, spending more on surveillance than defense. Lim believes that a Tiananmen moment is on China’s horizon. We can only hope, so the genius of the Chinses people can shine forth in every enterprise.
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  • D. Krajnovich
    5.0 out of 5 stars Superbly written!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    By chance, I was in China as a tourist in 1989 when the Tiananmen massacre occurred (my trip had been scheduled months earlier). Upon returning home, I studied the history and aftermath; attended vigils and protests; heard lectures from escaped dissidents; etc. I did not expect to learn much new in Louisa Lim's book. But since the book got a good mention in The Economist, and it was the 25th anniversary, I decided to buy a copy.

    Was I wrong! This is a superb book. I am not a fast reader, but I finished it in one day. I learned new things in every chapter. I was moved to tears by the chapter on the Tiananmen Mothers. There is no greater courage, no greater grief. The chapter on Bao Tong is also remarkable. On a purely technical level, Ms. Lim is an outstanding writer -- in the same class as Iris Chang. She uses a themed chapter format, most chapters concentrating on one or two people whom she personally interviewed. Her book has the added merit of being succinct. I suspect it took her twice the time to write a book half as long as most books on such weighty topics.

    If you, like me, think you know all about Tiananmen, this book may surprise you.
    27 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Luki D
    5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting recounts of the event and perspectives for the Chinese people
    Reviewed in Canada on September 8, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Lots of different and interesting perspectives that piece together an event in Chinese history. Quite interesting how one event can have so many view points.
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in India on November 20, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    the book gives very fine details about the event in a beautiful manner.
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  • Adrian J. Smith
    5.0 out of 5 stars China's amnesia should be countered. Everyone should read this!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 28, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    As Tiananmen features in every account of modern China that one reads, including biographies of any statesman at the time, or simple accounts of mdoern history, this reader was already very familiar with the event, and as such was somewhat uncertain about reading a whole book on the subject. However, I was pleasantly surprised at not just the informative nature of the book, but also of the emotionally harrowing accounts.
    People's Republic of Amnesia addresses several key issues not included in accounts one reads in modern history books. Amongst these are;
    The extent to which the Chinese government has successfully whitewashed Tiananmen from popular memory, along with the weapon of nationalistic education. To such an extent that when one witnesses the flag raising ceremony at Tiananmen, one cannot help but marvel at how a place of national shame has become a place of national pride.
    The extent to which Tiananmen mothers have been denied any kind of closure, and how they are subject to monitoring by a constant faceless bureaucracy, and the truly faceless nature of the regime on this matter.
    The extent of the division within the leadership. Not just Zhao Ziyang, but also the Commander of the Beijing Military Region General Xu Qinxian, who personally remarked that he would rather be beheaded than go down in history as a murderer, and paid for this with his career and a life spent under supervision.
    The truly shoddy nature of how the operation was executed. Not only were most of the soldiers deployed badly trained, and ill informed, but the fact was that initial attempts to deploy them failed. The citizens blockaded them and it seemed as though the implementation of martial law was in standstill, looking almost like a joke at first. However, what followed was no joke. Amongst the killed and wounded were even government officials and their families, as the troops fired up warning shots and hit residential compounds at Muxidi.
    Perhaps the best was saved until last, which was Chengdu. Perhaps it is inappropriate to say best, but Chengdu and it's brutal crackdown on June 5th is almost entirely forgotten. It is a story that should be told, and here it is solemnly told.
    People's Republic of Amnesia is a strongly recommended read for all China enthusiasts and history enthusiasts. It should be read because it details one of the greatest thefts of history in modern times. Indeed there are other thefts of history, not least of which is the Japanese amnesia that routinely agitates China, however this testimony is a perect expose at China's very own amnesia. Everyone should read it!
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  • Jana Kötter
    5.0 out of 5 stars Worth a read! - English version
    Reviewed in Germany on September 2, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    It was a brave decision to write this book. Louisa Lim didn’t talk to anyone about her plans, not even her own family. She kept her notes like a treasure, and wrote the book on a brand new laptop which has never been connected to the internet, says Ms Lim – because she was scared of the Chinese surveillance.

    25 years after the brutal crackdown of the students’ protest movement which has become a part of (Western) history as Tiananmen-massacre, the topic is still a taboo in China. The government wants its people to forget what has happened, and unfortunately, it is quite successful with its strategy – China, finally, has become the “People’s Republic of Amnesia”, as Louisa Lim states in the title of her book.

    „Memory is dangerous in a country that was built to function on national amnesia.“
    In her book, the author breaks the silence and revives the memories of probably the biggest taboo of China. She enlightens the students’ movement of 1989 from various perspectives – the soldier who had to follow the government, the students, their mothers.

    For example, there’s Chen Guang, a former soldier who is now an artist obsessed with painting images related to the trauma – even though he knows he will never be allowed to show his artwork in mainland China. „Of course there is guilt“, he admits. „Over a long period of time, you realize that there were many things you could have chosen not to do.“ Or Wu’er Kaixi, the most prominent of the students’ leaders who met Li Peng in the Great Hall of the People in his pajamas, painfully undernourished, and who interrupted China’s Premier harshly – he lives in exile today. There are the Tiananmen Mothers, the highest-ranking official Bao Tong, today’s Beijing students.

    Ms Lim talked to all of them. She and her protagonists can’t answer all of the open questions regarding Tiananmen 1989; many of them will probably remain unanswered forever. But the author succeeds in painting a diverse and deeply emotional picture of what happened in this summer 1989 in Beijing.

    That she is talking out of her own perspective from time to time, adds a personal touch to the book. Because „People’s Republic of Amnesia“ is not only a scientific work, but it is Ms Lim’s search for information, it is her long journey of research on which she takes the reader with her. She tells how she met her interviewees, where the appointments took place, how she felt during the talks – for example, when she met the former student Zhang Ming who continues his very own hunger strike by not eating solid food, but only milk, and she suddenly felt she was hungry. Or, on another occasion: „To find out more, I dug up an old copy of an Asia Watch report detailing the treatment of those 11 prisoners at Lingyuan. As I read the account, I felt a low pulse of shame at my attempts to excavate those long-buried memories.”

    The last chapter “Chengdu” deserves special credit. Because it wasn’t only in Beijing that students were fighting for a better China. Wuhan, Chengdu – in many more cities there were smaller versions of Tiananmen. Some say it was in up to 80 cities in the whole country. With previously unreleased pictures and sources, Ms Lim reconstructs on the example of Chengdu how those movements took place. This way, she does not only focus on Beijing, but remembers all the others “Tiananmens” that took place in 1989.

    No-one knows which consequences the publishing of this book will have for Louisa Lim – or if it does have any consequences at all. However, it was worth the risk. Because Ms Lim takes her readers as close to Tiananmen as no other author did before. She paints a deeply intense, very touching picture of the democratic movement, its brutal end and consequences that will also help to understand contemporary China in a better way.

    More reviews of books concerning China at www.china-blog.org/china-bücher - I'm looking forward to your visit!
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  • Fredrica Cere Kussin
    4.0 out of 5 stars A must read... it was more then ...
    Reviewed in Canada on June 2, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    A must read ...it was more then at The Tiananmen Square...all over China students were upset and wanting freedom, demonstrations led to the killing and assault on many young people..
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