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Captive Spirits: Prisoners of the Cultural Revolution
by Yang Xiguang, Susan McFadden
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (1997-11-27)
ISBN: 0195868455
EAN: 9780195868456
Dewy Decimal #: 951.056
Hardcover: 340 pages
SKU: 07060185
Condition: Like New Like New Fi
Comments: First Edition First Printing. Hardback in like new condition with no markings. Dust jacket in like new condition with minor shelf wear. Tight binding and clear crisp text. Beautiful book.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Captive Spirits is the gripping prison memoir of Yang Xiguang, a high school student who was arrested during the Cultural Revolution for writing a political essay. He spent the next ten years in a succession of Chinese gulags and vividly relates the poignant stories of his cellmates--activists, intellectuals, "rightists," thieves, and madmen--as well as his own intellectual and spiritual journey.
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Customer Reviews
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He speaks out for the voiceless
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-01-31
This book is a page turner and brings back lots of memories. I spent six years on a Chinese state farm during the Cultural Revolution myself and can relate to some of what he described and went through as far as hard labor, but I can never describe with such vividness and power the heart-wrenching experiences of the disprivileged, deprived, discriminated, and victimized members of the Chinese society under Mao, indeed a virtual prison in every sense of the world. Professor Yang's book is a voice for the voiceless. Captive Spirits not only serves to preserve the history of the brutal laogai system that still exists in China today, but it is also a scathing indictment of a brutal regime under Mao that destroyed the lives of tens of millions of the best that China has to offer to herself and the rest of the humanity. This book alone is enough to put Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and their cronies to the hall of shame once and for all. Professor Yang is no longer with us. He has joined his prison mates Li Jiulong and Liu Fengxian as well as his dear mother to whom he dedicated this book, but his legacy and spirit will stay with us.
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Great read
Rating (5)
Date: 2005-07-21
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I simply can't put it down once I start reading it. It is a great account of the author's growth, from a naive ultra-leftist to someone with a sophisticated mind, who eventually embraced Milton Friedman. And it is a great history of post-liberation China in the eyes of different individuals from all social spectra. After reading it, I realize how naive my understanding of the "cultural revolution" was.
I also read its Chinese version, but I feel that the English version is much better written. Stongly recommended!
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A young man making the best out of the worst
Rating (5)
Date: 2001-09-17
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
If you're into movies like Good Will Hunting, you'll like this book. The author walks us through the lives of his fellow prisoners while he relats his time spent in the prison. It was Cultural Revolution, many of the prisoners he came across were highly intelligent and well educated. Yang therefore made the best out of the time he had to spend there by learning English, Algebra, and Calculus from his fellow inmates. It's a tragic tale that so many people were jailed because their political views sway a fraction away from that mandated by the government, yet they were exactly the ones who have the knowledge and know-hows to improve the country's economy and living standards. It's also a uplifting tale because you see Yang dug himself out of the troubles he encountered, made it out of the prison, and now became an established economist. He has not let his past kept him hostage like many dissidents Chinese who migrated to the West. A fine tale about humanity and the will to survive that's inside us all. The chinese version of this book is also published by OUP.
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A new Dante, a new Divine Comedy
Rating (5)
Date: 1998-01-23
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
One of the most famous Chinese novelist BA Jing was also a "captive spirit" during the "Great Cultural Revolution". He kept reciting Divine Comedy in order to help himself endure the adversity. He always believes, there must be a new Dante some day to write a new Divine Comedy. Now I finally find this new Divine Comedy. Please have a read and get to know what is the Inferno in the communist China. You'll find the reason why the communism has to die.
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