Maoism and Grassroots Religion explores grassroots religious life under and after Mao in Rui'an County, Wenzhou of southeast China, a region widely known for its religious vitality. Drawing from unexplored local state archives, records of religious institutions, memoirs, and interviews, it tells the story of local communities' encounter with the Communist revolution, and its consequences, especially competition and struggles for religious property and ritual space. Rather than being totally disrupted, Xiaoxuan Wang shows, religious life under Mao was characterized by remarkable variety and unevenness and was contingent on the interactions of local dynamics with Maoist campaigns--including land reform, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. The revolutionary experience strongly determined the trajectories and development patterns of different religions, inter-religious dynamics, and state-religion relationships in the post-Mao era. Wang goes beyond the image of totalistic control and suppression, to show how Maoism is relevant to religious revitalization in the post-Mao era and, more broadly, the modern fate of Chinese religions and secularism in East Asia. Maoism permanently altered the religious landscape in China, especially by inadvertently promoting the localization and even (in some areas) expansion of Protestant Christianity, as well as the reinvention of traditional communal religion. Contrary to the popular image of total suppression and disruption during the Mao years, this book shows that religious changes under Mao were highly complex and contingent on a confluence of political campaigns, local politics and community responses.The post-Mao religious revival had deep historical roots in the Mao years, Wang argues, and cannot be explained by contemporary economic motives and cultural logics alone. This book calls for a new understanding of Maoism and secularism in the People's Republic of China.

About the Author
Xiaoxuan Wang is a historian of modern and late imperial China. His research interests include communal religion, Christianity, and the Chinese diaspora in Europe and the US. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2015.

Reviews
Wang's careful reading and field research provides a well-rounded and nuanced approach. As such, the study is an excellent starting point for understanding the continuity and transformation of religion in China since 1949. This book would work especially well as a text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on the historical and sociological study of religion in China. * Alex Mayfield, Assistant Professor of History, Department of Social Science and History, Asbury University, Lexington, KY, USA, Mission Studies *
Its detailed stories, further, provide an excellent resource for teaching about the multiple and unexpected trajectories of the Chinese Communist revolution at the local level, which insists on the Maoist revolution as both destructive but equally generative for religious life in China. * Joshua Tan, Reading Religion *
Overall, the community of scholars studying modern Chinese religions will greatly benefit from this careful research on religion and politics in a mostly rural corner of China during the under-researched Maoist era. There are some unexpected findings that deserve reflection and will make us rethink certain assumptions. * Mayfair Yang, Review of Religion and Chinese Society *
Using a combination of documentary collection and oral history, it explores the complex relationship between the communist revolution and religious life at the grassroots level, as well as the impact of the legacy of Maoism on religion in China today...In general, this book enriches our understanding of grassroots religious life during the Mao era and reminds us to pay attention to the impact of the Mao-era legacy on religious life in China today. The book makes outstanding contributions to the relationship between church and state in China, the history of religion in China, and the history the Mao era. This book is suitable for readers and researchers interested in these areas. * Wei Xiong, Central China Normal University *
Readers will come away with some fascinating insights into the operation of the state between the sub-county and provincial levels, which is no doubt at least partly a reflection of Wang's use of archival documents. * PRC History Review *



Book Information
ISBN 9780190069384
Author Xiaoxuan Wang
Format Hardback
Page Count 240
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 476g
Dimensions(mm) 157mm * 236mm * 25mm