Why is love, ai, in modern and contemporary China always political? Ting Guo's elegant analysis of the varieties of love invoked by Chinese leaders and thinkers over the last century is revelatory. From universal love through filial affection, revolutionary ardour, love of country and love of leader, a political religion of love has been effectively mobilised to forge solidarity, loyalty and patriotism. For everyone interested in how power permeates Chinese society, this is essential reading!,- Francesca Bray, Professor Emerita, Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh, Guo's book convincingly and eruditely demonstrates how love has been used as a universal adaptor in modern China to facilitate vastly different political ideologies and attract people's emotional identification. Love has been used to form divergent spiritual-political discourses, which sailed on different political cultures smoothly, or embarrassingly. This ambitious book introduces religious analysis and affect theories to modern Chinese political history, giving us a fresh and provocative perspective to understand the proximity between love, religion, and politics.,- Pang Laikwan, Choh-Ming Li Professor and Chairperson of Cultural and Religious Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong Ting Guo has proved herself an impossible scholar to pigeon-hole, writing insightfully on topics ranging from religious beliefs to social movements with a philosopher's eye, a gender specialist's concerns and a cultural historian's sensibility. Her varied talents come together very nicely indeed in this book. The result is spirited and illuminating exploration of the many meanings and varied uses of terms for 'love' and familial metaphors in Chinese political discourses from the days of Sun Yat-sen and Song Qingling in the last century to the time of Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan in this one.,- Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chancellor's Professor of History, UC Irvine, As Guo deftly notes, ai, or love, is a political construct that is central to the development of modern Chinese nationalism, yet it remains poorly understood. By tracing ideas about love and affect more broadly within the tangled history of Chinese nationalism, this timely and insightful study helps us to better understand how and why nationalism remains a powerful force that circumscribes and drives expressions of political emotion in China today., Gina Anne Tam, Associate Professor of History, Trinity University, San Antonio, In the process, Guo also makes a vital contribution to conversations taking place in fields like affect theory and history of emotions... Passing beyond the simplistic claim that language and affect operate on separate tracks, she proposes to examine the way love is mobilized through discourse in the full spectrum of post-imperial Chinese history., Donovan O. Schaefer, Associate Professor of Religious University of Pennsylvania for Journal of the American Academy of Religion
