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476 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 1995 careful analysis ofhow SAW responded to market reform, in Chinese Industrial Firms under Reform (1992). The present two volumes provide valuable additions to the literature on an important industry in China. They deserve the attention not only of auto executives and investors, but of scholars trying to understand and evaluate the political economy of China's automobile sector, especially import -substitution as a development strategy. Maria C. Morgan Earlham College III He Yuhai. Cycles ofRepression and Relaxation: Politico-Literary Events in China, 1976-1989. Preface by John Minford. Chinathemen Serie, Europäisches Projekt zur Modernisierung in China, Text VI. Bochum: Universitätsverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer, 1992. xvi, 584 pp. Paperback. This book presents a scrupulously researched historical overview of the interplay between PRC literature and politics over roughly the decade and a halfbetween the arrest of the "Gang of Four" and the Tiananmen crackdown. In ten chapters, He Yuhai succinctly guides the reader through major debates about cultural policies and controversies over influential and sensitive literature and reportage. He draws chiefly on his ambitiously broad reading ofPRC periodicals, the Hong Kong China-watcher press, and key Western journals on contemporary China such as The Australian Journal of ChineseAffairs and China Quarterly. The important controversies he outlines and analyzes include debates on socialist alienation and humanism ; questions on the handling offoreign cultural influence and "spiritual pollution"; issues like stream-of-consciousness writing and the technical experimentation ofWang Meng and other writers; the campaigns to defend creative freedom and the later crackdown on "bourgeois liberalization"; and debates over special groupings such as the "misty poets" and muckraking writers offictionalized reportage. Unlike most writings ofthis type published in the PRC, He Yuhai's book contains full source citations, an extensive bibliography, and an index, making this an especially valuable reference tool in contemporary Chinese studies.© 1995 by University^e Yuhai expounds a sound ifnot exactly striking thesis about the cycle of ofHawai'i Pressfluctuating political controls on literature, the shou or "repression" alternating with the fangor "relaxation" of such controls. He goes on to locate the origin of this approach to managing literary intellectuals past Deng to Mao himself, and Reviews 477© 1995 by University ofHawai'i Press convincingly documents how many ofDeng's ideas on culture derive in large part from Mao, particularly the idea ofplaying the "left" offagainst the "right" and vice versa while defining the paramount leader's own position as invariably at the center. The clarity and directness ofHe Yuhai's writing enliven the historical insights he shares with the reader, and his wide-ranging source citations and bibliography make Cycles ofRepression an indispensable reference work for all scholars interested in the cultural life ofthis period. One only hopes that He Yuhai or some other meticulous researcher will go on to write a similar book on the Chinese literary scene during the final decade ofthe twentieth century. Philip F. Williams Arizona State University Richard M. W. Ho. Ch'en Tzu-ang: Innovator in TangPoetry. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1993. 233 pp. Hardcover. Chen Zi'ang (658?-699?) is generally considered by modern scholars to be the most significant poet ofthe early Tang dynasty. In particular, he is credited with rejecting the genre ofcourt poetry that developed during the Six Dynasties and became dominant during the early Tang. Rather than follow the trends ofhis time and write poetry that has been judged by later critics as "effete" and "decadent ," Chen turned to the past for his models, favoring the simpler, more direct styles ofthe Han and Wei dynasties. Since the poets ofthe High Tang followed Chen in rejecting court poetry for earlier styles, Chen is often considered to be an important ancestor in the High Tang family tree. He was, in fact, lavishly praised by many later Tang poets, including Du Fu and Han Yu. While Chen has long been recognized as an important poet by Chinese scholars, however, he has sometimes been overlooked by Sinologists writing in Western languages. Like many other important poets ofthe Tang, Chen's brilliance has been overshadowed by the giants ofHigh Tang poetry like Du Fu and Li Bai. Consequently, there have...

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