The May Fourth Movement

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“One aspect of the movement was a protest against the authority and prestige of the Confucian ethics as they had been traditionally interpreted and used as a state ideology. Another was the establishment of a new vernacular and realistic literature. In the movement, China’s intellectuals enjoyed unprecedented freedom of expression. Ideas from the outside world got their fullest hearing. Liberalism became a major theme. The additions of nationalism and, later, socialism began a conflict that is no more finished in China than in other countries. Many-faceted, the May Fourth Movement cannot be appropriated by any one school or party without distorting history. In this most comprehensive and fully documented study, Dr. Chow examines the movement in all its aspects on a new plane of insight and objectivity.”—John King Fairbank, Chairman of the Center for East Asian Studies, Harvard University