Born Red

• Foreword William A. Joseph Preface 1. The hold of history 2. Learning to be red and expert 3. The thirty-six stratagems 4. Hidden messages 5. Ox ghosts and snake spirits 6. Winds and waves 7. The degenerate and the worn shoe 8. The red, the black, and the in-between 9. Smashing the four olds 10. Cleaning our own nest 11. Picking up the pieces 12. Rebels and royalists 13. Going to see the great helmsman 14. Sending off the monsters 15. Defending the mountain devil 16. The carpenter-spy 17. Reply from a socialist-roader 18. On the road 19. Rocks down the well 20. A long march, by hook or crook 21. Spring festival visitors 22. The capless official 23. Smears and skirmishes 24. Spring buds 25. Arrival of the cadets 26. The grand alliance 27. Uncommon laughter 28. Victory fish 29. The first martyr 30. Summons by subterfuge 31. Storming the enemy stronghold 32. Spies in the marketplace 33. Family skeletons 34. Playing with fire 35. The obstinacy of truth 36. On the run 37. From victors to vanquished 38. Living in limbo 39. Class brothers take revenge 40. The radiance of the setting sun 41. Three loyalties and four boundless loves 42. Hostage for a hobby 43. The twelve-force typhoon 44. The irretrievable past 45. The way out Postscript Appendixes.

"In Born Red, Gao Youan, a former Red Guard . . . tells us what it was like to be one of Mao's children in a provincial town four hours by train south of Peking. It is a terrible story, demonstrating that Mao and his crazed coterie were able to cripplee Chinese society for ten years, as well as cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, because they had plenty of help from the masses."—Politics "Gao's moving account, which is surprisingly even-handed, viividly captures the pervasive sense of fear and uncertainty that washed over China during the tumultuous period from 1966–1969."—Houston Chronicle "The most detailed account of those difficult years I have read . . . Incredible as the events may seem, they are believable."—New York Times Book Review "Gao tells his story well; it rings true with details of family life, stories of Red Guard treks around China, etc. . . . A fine account."—Library Journal "A detailed and fascinating autobiographical account of China's 'Cultural Revolution' . . . Well written."—CHOICE "Although many memoirs of the Cultural Revolution have been published in recent years, Born Red stands out for the immediacy of its portrait of the Red Guards. Without ever abandoning the voice of someone on the edge of childhood, Gao Yuan creates a nuanced and complex picture of the lives of his peers . . . Gao's narrative is powerful, compelling, and deeply disturbing."—American Histotical Review "This latest of a number of personal accounts of the youth involved in the mid-1960s Chinese Cultural Revolution is in many ways the most useful and credible."—History