| Preface | x |
| List of Illustrations | xiii |
| Chronology | xv |
| Pronunciation, Transliterations, and Names | xviii |
Part I | Shock | |
1. | Flashpoint: 4 May 1919: The Making of a New China | 3 |
| Why was May Fourth Important? | 12 |
| The Fall of the Chinese Empire | 26 |
| Uneasy Birth: The Chinese Republic | 35 |
2. | A Tale of Two Cities: Beijing, Shanghai, and the May Fourth Generation | 41 |
| Beijing: Intellectual Centre of the Movement | 43 |
| Shanghai: China's Modern Challenge | 49 |
| People: The May Fourth Generation | 54 |
| Subcultures | 65 |
3. | Experiments in Happiness: Life and Love in New Culture China | 69 |
| New Classes, New Opportunities | 70 |
| Print, Commerce, and Culture | 76 |
| Love, Labour, and Liberty | 77 |
| Ask Taofen! | 80 |
| The May Fourth Entrepreneur | 90 |
| Saving the Nation, Making a Profit | 93 |
| End of an Era? | 99 |
4. | Goodbye Confucius: New Culture, New Politics | 102 |
| Iconoclasm | 108 |
| Goodbye Confucius? | 110 |
| China's Road to Nationalism | 117 |
| Internationalism, Cosmopolitism, and Nationalism | 123 |
| Looking East in Europe | 127 |
| Not Just West and East: Thinking Beyond Europe | 129 |
| Japan's Promise, Japan's Menace | 133 |
| Party Politics | 134 |
| The Communists | 135 |
| The Nationalists | 138 |
| Nationalists and Communists, United and Divided | 142 |
| The Question of Woman | 146 |
| Conclusion: Goodbye May Fourth? | 149 |
Part II | Aftershock | |
5. | A Land of Death: Darkness over China | 155 |
| China Changes Shape, 1931-7 | 157 |
| The Choices of the May Fourth Generation | 163 |
| China Falls Apart, 1937-45 | 167 |
| War and Confrontation | 178 |
| The New World | 181 |
| The Cold War | 190 |
| The Great Leap Forward | 194 |
| Conclusion: May Fourth in Abeyance | 198 |
6. | Tomorrow the Whole World Will Be Red: The Cultural Revolution and the Distortions of May Fourth | 200 |
| Considering the Cultural Revolution | 207 |
| What was the Cultural Revolution? | 210 |
| The Cold War and the Cultural Revolution | 214 |
| Life and Death during the Red Guard Period | 217 |
| Changing the Guard | 226 |
| May Fourth or Not? | 230 |
| The Cold War and the Romance of Technology | 233 |
| Divisions: Red, Black, Men, Women | 238 |
| Conclusion: A Strange May Fourth | 240 |
7. | Ugly Chinamen and Dead Rivers: Reform and the 'New May Fourth' | 244 |
| The Late Cold War | 246 |
| Life and Liberty in the 'New Era' | 248 |
| Xiahai: 'Jumping into the Sea' of the New Society | 255 |
| What Sort of Crisis? | 258 |
| The Culture Fever Debates | 260 |
| The Ugly Chinaman and Heshang | 262 |
| Echoes of May Fourth: The Different Crises | 269 |
| Tian'anmen and the End of an Era | 272 |
| The Nature of the New Era: Towards Chinese Democracy? | 280 |
8. | Learning to Let Go: The May Fourth Legacy in the New Millennium | 285 |
| The Two Cities Revisited | 289 |
| Coping with the Past | 295 |
| New Thinking | 301 |
| Across the Straits | 305 |
| Searching for a New Story | 308 |
| Guide to Further Reading | 315 |
| Notes | 325 |
| Index | 345 |