Ancestral Leaves

Ancestral Leaves follows one family through six hundred years of Chinese history and brings to life the epic narrative of the nation, from the fourteenth century through the Cultural Revolution. The lives of the Ye family—“Ye” means “leaf” in Chinese—reveal the human side of the large-scale events that shaped modern China: the vast and destructive rebellions of the nineteenth century, the economic growth and social transformation of the republican era, the Japanese invasion during World War II, and the Cultural Revolution under the Chinese Communists. Joseph W. Esherick draws from rare manuscripts and archival and oral history sources to provide an uncommonly personal and intimate glimpse into Chinese family history, illuminating the changing patterns of everyday life during rebellion, war, and revolution.

Joseph W. Esherick is Professor of Modern Chinese History at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (UC Press) and co-editor of The Chinese Cultural Revolution as History, among many books.

Preface

Part I: The Imperial Era

1. Fleeing the Long Hairs
2. Family Roots
3. Father, Son, and Family
4. Rebellion
5. Official Life in the Late Qing
6. A Time of Transitions

Part II: Republican China

7. Doing Business in Tianjin
8. Growing Up in Tianjin
9. Student Life in the 1930s
10.War

Part III: The People’s Republic

11. Family Life in New China
12. Hundred Flowers and Poisonous Weeds
13. The Cultural Revolution

Epilogue: After the Deluge

Notes
Glossary of Chinese Terms
Selected Ye Family Bibliography
Index