"Lanza’s book is an important historical documentation of the beginning of a shift in the scholarly study of Asia in the United States and the move to critically assess the foundations of knowledge creation." Miriam Sharma, Critical Asian Studies
"[A] thoughtful and meticulously researched study..." Perry Johansson, Sixties
“A provocative and nuanced case study of how Maoism imported from China largely shaped the student movement in the United States in the 1960s and the 1970s.” Hongshan Li, Journal of American-East Asian Relations
"Sheds vital light on an important US New Left intervention and constitutes necessary reading for scholars of modern China and the global 1960s. . . . Lanza’s sympathetic yet critical excavation of the endeavors of CCAS offers present-day scholars, especially scholars of East Asia working in US institutions, resources to critically evaluate aspects of our own practices." Maggie Clinton, Twentieth-Century China
"Deeply political and, indeed, personal." Joshua Fogel, China Review International
"Fabio Lanza has an extraordinary ability to find profound historical signiificances in student organizations' publications and records. . . . The contents of The End of Concern are extremely relevant to the field [of Chinese studies] as a whole, and this book should interest all those interested in the Global Sixties, the intellectual histories of the American and French Left, fellow travelers of Maoist China, and the impact of Maoism globally." Patrick David Buck, China Review
“Fabio Lanza takes us into an almost forgotten moment in the history of Chinese studies. With precision, care, theoretical smarts, and an astonishing attention to detail, he shows how an engaged band of thinkers grappled with Maoism and the Cultural Revolution while collectively opposing the US war in Vietnam. This is not simply an exercise in rethinking a moment in the Cold War history of sinology. Rather, Lanza situates his study in the wider discursive and activist space of global Maoism, revealing the myriad ways in which Maoism was embraced as an alternative to the time’s capitalist modernity and imperialism. And he makes a compelling case for why revisiting and rethinking the global Maoism of the 1960s is more urgent than ever. The End of Concern is essential reading for our contested present and uncertain future.” Ralph A. Litzinger, coeditor of Ghost Protocol: Development and Displacement in Global China
"Carefully reconstructing the documentary record of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars, Fabio Lanza brings unknown, forgotten, and disavowed material to light. With superior research, compassionate critique, and clear, accessible writing, he has defined this period's intellectual history. A wonderful book." Tani E. Barlow, author of The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism
About the Author
Table of Contents
Introduction. Of Ends and Beginnings; or, When China Existed 1
1. America's Asia: Discovering China, Rethinking Knowledge 23
2. To Be, or Not to Be, a Scholar: The Praxis of Radicalism in Academia 67
3. Seeing and Understanding: China as the Place of Desire 101
4. Facing Thermidor: Global Maoism at Its End 143
Epilogue. Area Redux: The Destinies of "China" in the 1980s and 1990s 175
Notes 195
Bibliograpy 241
Index 257