Peng Deng – författare

Drawing on an abundance of primary sources as well as on the author's extensive personal experience in the Chinese school system, this book examines the evolution of non-governmental schools in China between 1895 and 1995. The author begins with an overview of private education in pre-modern China, and discusses the growth of modern private schools in the past century as part of the Chinese people's struggle for national survival. He argues that even though the government since the Late Qing period has placed a premium on education, the government never had enough resources, and private schools filled the gap. The author maintains that the disappearance of private schools in China in the 1950s was a casualty of the Chinese revolution.In the post-Mao era, private schools re-emerged when the nation underwent some very fundamental social and economic transformations. Being part of China's burgeoning market economy, private education has not been immune to various problems. Nevertheless, the author argues that it is private education in the 1950s that has spearheaded China's educational reform.

Exiled Pilgrims contains thirty-two personal accounts by people who, as teenagers, went to rural China in 1964 and 1965. Barred from high school or college by political discrimination, the authors left the cities for the countryside in hopes of redeeming their “original sin” while making a difference in rural China with their hard work, only to find out that their idealism was futile in a mundane world and absurd time. Thus their pilgrimage to an illusory utopia turned into a painful search for truth and a tough struggle to liberate themselves against enormous odds. The book is the first and only collection of stories by members of a once marginalized and heretofore largely unheard-of group in contemporary China."The stories of these young 'exiled pilgrims' bring the reader uplifting examples of the resilience of the human spirit. Their stories are heart-breaking, but the voice is never cynical, and hope is a constant. Exiled Pilgrims is a treasure."Carole Head, High Point University"The stories compiled here detail the daily life of a strange and fascinating period, always with emotion, often with humor, showing that one can speak about serious things without being dry. Reading this book is an excellent and pleasant way to understand the real China under Mao."Michel Bonnin, School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, Paris "These individualized accounts reflect the shining—and somewhat sad—lives of pre-Cultural Revolution zhiqing. In their stories, the authors not only record their personal experiences, but also provide insightful explanation for the origins, evolution, and impact of such phenomena as the implementation of the class line at schools and the utopian orientation among the Chinese youth in the early and mid-1960s. Together with the valuable photos and rare documents, stories in Exiled Pilgrims give us a fairly comprehensive portrayal of the collective journey of pre-Cultural Revolution zhiqing."Liu Xiaomeng, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing