This is the earliest comprehensive treatment of the May Fourth Movement in English. Although it is nearly fifty years since its publications, it still serves as one of the most thorough examinations of the movement and its impact. Chow actually defines the May Fourth Movement as going from 1917 to 1921, arguing that the protests of 1919 were only a more direct symptom of Chinese dissatisfaction. Intellectuals and activists were frustrated by China’s exploitation by foreign powers. They blamed China’s weakness on the hegemony of Confucian values, which they believed prevented the modernization of the country. The May Fourth Movement was an experimentation with new ideas, quite often foreign, to find a new path for China.
Chow suggests that the movement was the intellectual awakening for China. Confucianism had been under attack for decades, but intellectuals in the May Fourth Movement made the most concerted effort up to that time to find an alternative. Most of the activists in the movement were Beida students, although some teachers participated as well. Chow goes into enormous detail on the various intellectual debates and ideological splits within the movement, which had little organization, instead focusing on intellectual discourse. The dominant themes of the movement were the liberation of the individual, the strengthening of the country, and building a modernized society with social justice. Chow suggests that some visiting western intellectuals, particularly Bertrand Russell, had a powerful impact on the movement, even if he was unimpressed with it himself.
There is no strong central theme to this work other than the movement marked a new intensity to the intellectual discourse. Chow’s research in memoirs, interviews, publications and government documents is incredible to behold. The amount of detail he provides gives a very textured account of the movement, but it is sometimes difficult to follow. Given the lack of coordination within the movement, any other presentation might have been suspect. Although there is new information and analyses of the May Fourth Movement, this work remains very valuable. ( )