Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction / Jeremy Brown and Matthew D. Johnson -- Part I. Crimes, labels, and punishment -- How a "bad element" was made : the discovery, accusation, and punishment of Zang Qiren / Yang Kuisong -- Moving targets : changing class labels in rural Hebei and Henan, 1960-1979 / Jeremy Brown -- An overt conspiracy : creating rightists in rural Henan, 1957-1958 / Cao Shuji -- Revising political verdicts in post-Mao China : the case of Beijing Fengtai District / Daniel Leese -- Part II. Mobilization -- Liberation from the loom? : rural women, textile work, and revolution in North China / Jacob Eyferth -- Youth and the "great revolutionary movement" of scientific experiment in 1960s-1970s rural China / Sigrid Schmalzer -- Adrift in Tianjin, 1976 : a diary of natural disaster, everyday urban life, and exile to the countryside / Sha Qingqing and Jeremy Brown -- Part III. Culture and communication -- Beneath the propaganda state : official and unofficial cultural landscapes in Shanghai, 1949-1965 / Matthew D. Johnson -- China's "great proletarian information revolution" of 1966-1967 / Michael Schoenhals -- The dilemma of implementation : the state and religion in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1990 / Xiaoxuan Wang -- Part IV. Discontent -- Radical agricultural collectivization and ethnic rebellion : the communist encounter with a "new emperor" in Guizhou's Mashan region, 1956 / Wang Haiguang -- From "opposing Han chauvinism" to "opposing local nationalism" : causes and effects of the 1957-1958 movement against local nationalism in Xinjiang / Zhe Wu -- Redemptive sects and the communist state, 1949 to the 1980s / S.A. Smith -- Epilogue: Mao's China : putting politics in perspective / Vivienne Shue.

"This edited volume explores the stunning diversity in behavior, outlook, and viewpoints at the grassroots level of society during the Mao Zedong era. Men had gay relationships in factory dormitories, teens penned searing complaints in diaries, mentally ill individuals in the Beijing suburbs cursed Mao, and farmers formed secret societies, founded new dynasties, and worshipped forbidden spirits. These diverse undercurrents were at least as mainstream in people's everyday lives as the ideas found in Mao's Little Red Book or People's Daily editorials. Bringing together senior scholars and up-and-coming researchers from China, Europe, North America, and Taiwan, the book draws on rare documents to challenge top-down historical narratives. Focusing on crime, labels, and punishment; mobilization; culture and communication; and discontent, the chapters reveal how people individually and collectively negotiated structures of power. Bringing readers stories of aggrieved schoolteachers in rural Hunan, Uyghur officials in Xinjiang, armed rebels on the southwest frontier, and disaffected youth in Tianjin, the volume sheds light on the traumas and unexpected turning points during China's years of high socialism, raising the question of whether 'Mao's China' ever existed at all"--Provided by publisher.