Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 522
•
Trim: 6 x 9
978-1-4422-3286-0 • Paperback • May 2014 • $52.00 • (£40.00)
978-1-4422-3287-7 • eBook • May 2014 • $49.00 • (£38.00)
Philip J Cunningham is a freelance writer and teacher of media studies.
Prologue to the 25th Anniversary Edition: Tiananmen: Trying to Remember, Trying to Forget
Preface
Part I: New Moon
May 3 (AM): Blue Skies over Tiananmen
May 3 (PM): In Search of the Real China
May 4 (AM): The New May Fourth Spirit
May 4 (PM): Running with Rebels
May 10 (AM): Ten Thousand Bicycles
May 10 (PM): People’s Daily
Part II: Waxing Moon
May 13 (AM): Democracy Walls
May 13 (PM): Hunger Strike
May 14 (AM): Sun and Stars
May 14 (PM): Overnight Vigil
May 15 (AM): Food for Fasters
May 15 (PM): Looking for Gorbachev
May 16: Working-Class Heroes
May 17: Rising Tide of Rebellion
May 18 (AM): Water Strike
May 18 (PM): Criminal Elements
May 19 (AM): The New Red Guards
May 19 (PM): Breaking the Fast
Part III: Waning Moon
May 20: Martial Law
May 22: Provincial Vagabonds
May 23: Egg on the Face of Mao
May 24: Tiananmen Headquarters
May 26: Radical Camp
May 27: BBC Does the Countryside
May 28: Last Will and Testament
May 28: Clandestine Interview
May 28: Going Underground
May 28: Midnight Rendezvous
May 29: The Goddess
Part IV: No Moon
June 2 (Night): Troops Are Coming
June 3 (Morning): Behind the Great Hall
June 3 (Evening): Point of No Return
June 3 (Night): Of Tanks and Men
June 3–4: Eve of Destruction
June 4: The Sky Is Crying
Afterword
For anyone interested in gaining an insight into how it felt to be there, for the entire four weeks of the protest up to the darkest night of the month, when the movement was crushed in a small-hours massacre, KJ contributor Philip J. Cunningham’s Tiananmen Moon provides a uniquely informed inside view. . . .This 25th anniversary edition of Tiananmen Moon is itself a valuable historical document, containing a new prologue that reviews post-crackdown developments, and the subsequent lives of many of the activists involved. The spirit of Tiananmen is not confined to China, or the late 80s. It is present anywhere that citizens take a stand to challenge a corrupt political status quo, by whatever means come to hand, and whatever the result.
— Kyoto Journal
[T]his book represents a different kind of coverage that richly complements the existing literature on the 1 989 Beijing Spring. While its major purpose has successfully been attained, this work which is grounded in practicalities has uniquely been organized as well. Lastly, as a book dedicated to those wonderful martyred souls who will never know the fruits of their great sacrifice, the memoir by Philip Cunningham has been told in an outspoken manner and conversational tone. From his study, we have understood about how two and a half decades later the Tiananmen massacre has become more relevant than ever before while the Chinese Communist rulers are trying to make this influential incident irrelevant. . . .[T]his highly informative and easy-to read volume will be of interest to those who want to know the thrilling stories of the Tiananmen Square upheaval and the June 4, 1 989 government military crackdown from a real person who directly experienced this archival event in the modern People’s Republic of China.
— International Journal of China Studies
Tiananmen Moon is at its best when Mr. Cunningham captures the disarray as the protests evolved and especially as the massacre began. . . . [Cunningham] deals with events that cannot be discussed in China today. The media censorship is so strong that students have little idea of what their counterparts did 20 years ago. But more than a million Beijingers had publicly supported the students, and memories must linger in the minds of many, not only in the capital but throughout the country. (Previous Edition Praise)
— The Wall Street Journal
In offering a candid view of the student leadership based on his interviews and interactions with the protestors, Cunningham's account reveals the dissent and factionalism within the student ranks. A welcome addition to our understanding of a convoluted and perplexing historical black mark that media and scholarly pundits have only begun to unravel after nearly two decades of silence, this book will be appreciated by both interested general readers and scholars. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Library Journal
There is great attention to detail, recounting Cunningham's student life, simple pleasures in a developing country with strict government controls. One highlight of Tiananmen Moon is a fascinating interview with protest leader Chai Ling. Like Cunningham himself, the reader begins as an outsider to the movement and gets drawn further and further in, first out of curiosity and then a sense of solidarity. The author—friends with students and other liberal Chinese, and fluent in Chinese—gets as far inside perhaps as a Western eye can get. His account, accessible and readable, is a foreign perspective—perhaps being partially outside the frame helps to see the greater picture at times, to ask the right questions—but one with an insider's fondness for and grasp of China's idiosyncrasies. It is deeply personal and the reader invests much in the outcome, a tribute to Cunningham's highly convincing and moving recounting of events. This is a ground-level view of the struggle, not just ring-side but inside. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Ezra Erker; Bangkok Post
A superior—and often brilliant—writer. . . . [Cunningham] presents richly drawn characters and dramatic threads that pull us in like a novel, while providing remarkable yet organic insights. In Tiananmen Moon, Cunningham's high points—which are many—are equal to the best of any nonfiction author writing today. The book is not just a well-wrought story, though; it is a seamless blend of memoir and history, past and present, narrative and reflection, gemlike description and unadorned information. . . . Tiananmen Moon provides the . . . steady, reflective, nuanced eye of someone who knows China and is not afraid to let the truth fall where it may. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Asia Times Online
Philip Cunningham wrote his journal-like book with such honesty and power of observation that he captured my imagination. Tiananmen Moon is a fascinating look not so much at a series of events, but at the incomprehensible nation of China itself. Like Philip Cunningham, we'll never be able to fully understand it, but Tiananmen Moon is a good place to start. (Previous Edition Praise)
— The Internet Review Of Books
Offers fascinating detail of the events and glorious description. . . . Tiananmen Moon is a valuable addition to the literature of that Beijing Spring. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Pacific Affairs
[A] splendid firsthand account that anyone interested in modern China should read. Cunningham evokes powerfully the smells, sounds, and shifting mood on the streets, making the reader feel like one is there alongside him as he tries to figure out what is going on, where the protests are heading, and how the peaceful movement morphs into bloodshed. . . . This memoir serves as a moving tribute to all those young Chinese who risked so much to better their world. . . . In finally publishing this animated chronicle, he challenges two decades of organized forgetting and revisionism concerning what happened and what was at stake in 1989. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Japan Times
Philip J Cunningham’s experiences, as portrayed in Tiananmen Moon: Inside the Chinese Student Uprising of 1989, provide another perspective to approach 4 June: memories as related by ordinary people who participated in the uprising. His vantage point, then as a foreign student, makes his observation unique and invaluable. . . . As one of the participants in the 1989 uprising, I believe that ordinary people who participated—intellectuals, merchants, workers, farmers, and even the military—played a very important role. . . . In fact, the real force that drove students at that time to uphold their courage and enthusiasm, to steer the movement to a new stage, came from vast popular support . . . which is so clearly portrayed in Cunningham’s book. This is why Cunningham’s observations are invaluable. What he provides us with is a personal account, partly as insider and partly as outsider. He tries to give readers a picture of different reactions from different levels of society about the movement and what ordinary people felt during that time. He has succeeded admirably. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Dan Wang, Taiwan National Tsing Hua University; China Information
An exciting window on China and the Chinese; an important story and a valuable contribution to contemporary Chinese history. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Bill Kovach, founder of the Committee of Concerned Journalists
There is no American more qualified to write about China today than Philip Cunningham. He speaks and reads Chinese, his descriptive writing evokes a clear sense of place and time. He was one of the marchers back in 1989 during the student movement and crackdown at Tiananmen Square. His book, written with the dual perspective of a participant in the movement and as a freelancer working with the international press, is the first and last word on that historic and horrific moment in the rise of modern China. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Gay Talese, author of A Writer's Life
Interviews, notes, and photos taken by the author have been central to nearly every major documentary on the topic, including PBS, ABC, NHK, Asahi, and BBC
Includes never-seen photographs from the author’s private collection retrieved after having been lost for 18 years
First-hand account of the May 4, 1989, march with the Choral Ensemble from the university district to Tiananmen Square, followed by the sit-in on the Square and the return march to campus
Participant account of the colorful demonstration of ten thousand bicycles from Beijing University to Tiananmen Square to People’s Daily and back to campus
Inside takes on the hunger strike and water strike
Inside access to student command center in broadcast tent
Account of all-night vigil on the square
Visits to student headquarters at Beijing University
Practical matters, including vignettes on how protestors managed to eat, rest, protect themselves from the weather, wash, clean up, and keep safe inside a massive crowd
Day-to-day view of Western media tactics adapting to the changing political landscape
Meetings with prominent writers and musicians in support of the movement, including Yang Xianyi, Gladys Yang, Hou Dejian, and Cui Jian
Three interviews with Chai Ling, commander-in-chief of Tiananmen demonstrators, including her May 28 last will and testament
Drama of intercepted tape of May 28 interview that leads to the ABC News bureau to be searched and temporarily closed down
A day and night on the square under attack with a drama academy student who had been a hunger striker (now a prominent dramatist)
Clandestine assistance to activists in danger, before and after the crackdown, and the smuggling out of TV tapes
Conversations with high-placed officials
Witness to June 4, 1989, crackdown with the BBC TV crew
New features
Substantive new prologue
Rewritten throughout to include extensive new detail and previously unpublished information