The End of Concern: Maoist China, Activism, and Asian Studies

In 1968 a cohort of politically engaged young academics established the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars (CCAS). Critical of the field of Asian studies and its complicity with the United States' policies in Vietnam, the CCAS mounted a sweeping attack on the field's academic, political, and financial structures. While the CCAS included scholars of Japan, Korea, and South and Southeast Asia, the committee focused on Maoist China, as it offered the possibility of an alternative politics and the transformation of the meaning of labor and the production of knowledge. In The End of Concern Fabio Lanza traces the complete history of the CCAS, outlining how its members worked to merge their politics and activism with their scholarship. Lanza's story exceeds the intellectual history and legacy of the CCAS, however; he narrates a moment of transition in Cold War politics and how Maoist China influenced activists and intellectuals around the world, becoming a central element in the political upheaval of the long 1960s.

Author: Fabio Lanza
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 10/02/2017
Pages: 280
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 9.00h x 3.70w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780822369479

About the Author
Fabio Lanza is Associate Professor of History and East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona, author of Behind the Gate: Inventing Students in Beijing, and coeditor of De-Centering Cold War History: Local and Global Change.