Editorial

Abstract

Editorial Kristin Stapleton As I begin my service as editor of Twentieth-Century China with this issue, I feel honored to have the opportunity to contribute to this great journal and grateful to my immediate predecessor, James Carter, and the members of the Editorial Board for their support. One of my first scholarly articles appeared in volume 22 of the journal, back when it was called Republican China and edited by the late Stephen Averill. Working on revisions of my manuscript with Steve's wise and kindly guidance was a great foundation for a lasting friendship, and it is a pleasure to pay tribute to him in these pages. As I discovered many years ago, a strong journal can help build a scholarly community. In the case of TCC, our work benefits from the institutional framework offered by the Historical Society for Twentieth-Century China (HSTCC). I hope to meet many of TCC's authors, reviewers, and readers at future meetings of the HSTCC. In the meantime, please contact me with any questions or suggestions you have about the journal. This issue begins with an excursion into the forests of Yunnan in the early twentieth century. Mark Swislocki analyzes village policies toward forest conservation and shows that village collectivities had a rich understanding of the significance of forests. Their concerns differed from those of national- and provincial-level forestry officials and activists, who were in the process of creating new tools to try to shape forests, including legislation and educational initiatives. Swislocki effectively highlights the value of forest history as a pathway to study the dynamics of community- and state-building, as well as for understanding China's environment. The next two articles explore aspects of culture before and after the year 1949. Weihong Du identifies a pivotal moment in the career of painter Xu Beihong that she argues had a transformative effect in the history of Chinese painting. Much struck by the comments of some of the Soviet citizens who came to see an exhibition of Chinese art that he took to Russia in 1934, Xu Beihong widened his painterly vision to take in working people and social struggle, creating works that helped constitute the canon of socialist art in the PRC. Guo Wu's article focuses on the Socialist Education movement of the early 1960s and its aftermath, showing how "bottom-up" history took shape and created a standard type of "recalling-bitterness" narrative, "blurring the line between fact and fiction." This development, Wu shows, is important for, inter alia, understanding the worldview of the Red Guard generation. The Korean War is the subject of the fourth article. Michael Sheng provides a detailed analysis of Mao's thinking about participation in the war and war goals, marshaling evidence to show that his decisions were influenced not only by global and domestic events but by his own emotional reactions to these events. Sheng's [End Page 193] work contributes to the worldwide scholarly effort to penetrate the secrets of Cold War politics and assess how the personalities of its major actors affected its history. Our book review editor, Susan Fernsebner, has worked with reviewers to bring us assessments of four new books in the China field, on topics including life and folklore in a north China Catholic community, Zhang Taiyan's Buddhism, opium consumption in republican Guangzhou, and contemporary society and culture in the PRC. The reviews are listed in the printed journal and available to all as a pdf online at www.maneyonline.com/doi/suppl/10.1179/1521538514Z.00000000049. I am grateful to Susan for her contributions to the journal, as well as to James Carter, Maura Cunningham, and the staff at Maney for educating me and helping to make a smooth editorial transition. [End Page 194] Copyright © 2014 Twentieth-Century China