In the 1960s and 70s, the government of China conducted a rather unusual social experiment called ‘Up to the mountains and down to the village’ which sent u

During China’s Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao Zedong’s "rustication program" resettled 17 million urban youths, known as "sent downs," to the c

In Tempered in the Revolutionary Furnace, Yihong Pan tells her personal story and the story of her generation of urban middle-school graduates sent to the count

This history of China's sent-down youth movement uses archival research to revise popular notions about power dynamics during the Cultural Revolution.