The Phoenix Years Art, Resistance, and the Making of Modern China [Paperback]

[ODea] makes geopolitical history accessible and engaging through the lives and experiences of such individual artists as Huang Rui and Guo Jian. ODea writes for readers new to art, offering straightforward descriptions of individual works, and new to Chinese history, explaining the nuts and bolts of crucial policies and protests. By focusing on how individuals experienced communism and resisted it, ODea succeeds in making history human.A well-grounded survey of the incredible courage of Chinese artists since the first flowering of the late 1970s and subsequent crackdowns. An illuminating chronicle of several generations of resilient and beleaguered Chinese artists, with minibiographies, a helpful timeline, and extensive notes.Amidst all the chatter about China lies this rock of a book, a magnificent memoir and history from the very core of modern Chinese society. It's a wonderful thing where the essential book and the delightful book are, as in this case, the same thing. Let no one speak of China who has not read?Beautifully crafted and immensely readable. Required reading for all those who seek to understand how China has stumbled repressively through the past 40 years and how its finest citizens have persisted in trying to imagine a better, freer China. ODea does not put a foot wrong. The soul of the book, however, breathes in her account of the lives and artistic endeavors of a range of people.ODea has done a great service by bringing together the disparate stories of her artists and showing how their creativity has been a constant struggle against regime repression. Their vision for Chinas future should be ours.At once a fascinating account of the birth of modern China and a moving chronicle of courage, creativity, and resistance.