It is noteworthy, though perhaps not surprising, that the centenary of the May Fourth movement did not give rise to a significant historiographical renewal. One or two monographs appeared in English, a few more in Chinese, while a few—academic but nonetheless rather official—conferences were held in Beijing and Taipei. The overall echo remained limited. Perhaps the subject has been overly belabored, or perhaps the many caveats expressed by scholars over the decades, downplaying the significance of the movement, have finally sunk in.

In this context, the idea to revisit May Fourth as the foundational event of a century of student movements seemed particularly welcome. Unfortunately, the volume under review is rather disappointing. Most importantly, it lacks a clear definition of what should be considered a student movement. Both bottom-up society-led and top-down state-led mobilizations are included. While movements connected to the rise of the Communist Party are discussed in detail, pro-KMT movements in which students played a role, like the New Life movement in the 1930s and more generally the role of KMT youth organizations are simply left out, as are the recent (2014) student protests in Hong Kong and Taiwan. On the other hand, some of the chapters in the book don't fit the definition of student movements. Chapter 8, on the role of returned students in China's nuclear program, deals with students but not movements, whereas chapter 11, on the April 5 movement, is devoted to a movement in which students did not play a specific role.

The introduction proposes a periodization underpinned by an implied typology contrasting self-organized and government-organized movements. The first period (1919–49) is described as “mixed” (in itself an indication that the typology is not entirely operational), the second period (1949–76) as one of “government-organized” movements (but with the 1957 anti-government protests at Peking University standing out as an exception to the Red Guard rallies and the Rustication movement of the 1960s), the third period discusses “self-propelled” movements (1976–1989) and the fourth reverts to state sponsorship (1990–today), referring particularly to the anti-Nato protests in 1999 and the anti-Japanese protests of the 2010s. The organization of the book only partially coincides with the periodization, with parts 1 and 2 covering the “first period” (1919–49), part 3 dealing with a segment running from 1949 to the early 1960s, and part 4 combining the Cultural Revolution, the April 5 movement of 1976 and the 1989 pro-democracy protests.

The overall framing presented in the introduction (“The May Fourth Centenary”) and the conclusion (“Who Move [sic] the Mountain in the Twenty-First Century China?”) is also unconvincing, partly because of its official overtones and partly because it largely ignores the bulk of recent western and Chinese historiography on twentieth-century China. The conclusion, whose title alludes to Mao's words, pays particular attention to Xi Jinping's call to commemorate patriotism and loyalty to the party, and Ma Ying-jeou's calls for unity on the occasion of the May Fourth centenary. By contrast, it singles out “some Western historians” for criticism because they “overlooked the complex nature and tremendous changes in Chinese student movements from one generation to the next. The stories told here provide a unique perspective into those who moved mountains of ‘old ideas,’ shaped modern China, and made unprecedented changes over the past 100 years.” (269) The narrative remains confined to a linear view of the Chinese people's heroic endeavors against the “two mountains” of imperialism and feudalism, under the guidance of the party. Little attention is paid to the many recent and not-so-recent studies—in no way limited to “Western” (whatever that may mean) historiography (see for example studies by Chen Pingyuan, Luo Zhitian, Zhang Qing, Xu Jilin, and Wang Fan-sen, to name only the most famous, none of whom appear in the bibliography)—that considerably complexify the view of the May Fourth era, the ambiguous role of intellectuals in quest of cultural capital, and the salience of conservative alternatives, among other themes.

Individual chapters offer a more contrasted picture. The May Fourth period is heavily skewed toward Party history, with yet another study of Li Dazhao aimed at closely tying the 1919 protests to the foundation of the CCP in 1921 and strenuously denying the possibility that the movement was “leaderless.” Li Dazhao's role in the Young China society (Shaonian Zhongguo xuehui) is overstated, and the society itself was ideologically far more eclectic than claimed. The chapter on women activists in the May Fourth movement is more cognizant of scholarship in the field, but the focus on Tianjin in 1919, predictably highlighting the role of Deng Yingchao, again seems overly narrow at a time when women activists were fighting many other battles, including for women's suffrage. Two chapters on students in wartime mobilization focus respectively on a Guangxi student regiment, acknowledging the role played by Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, and on demonstrations by Chongqing students (April 21, 1949) within the Anti-Civil War movement, noting the role of Third Force parties in keeping students mostly “unaligned” until 1949.

Although it does not fit well into the editors’ typology, the chapter on the 5.19 movement at Peking University in 1957 is one of the best, clearly showing that the movement was a spontaneous outburst rather than being part of the broader Hundred Flowers movement, and that it supported a form of socialist democracy that remained within the ideological frame of Marxism. The chapter on the pre-Cultural Revolution rustication movement (1962–66) is well-documented, but it is questionable to what extent the movement can be compared to other student mobilizations. In the Cultural Revolution context, “movement” (yundong) refers to a state-initiated “campaign,” rather than to a form of bottom-up mobilization. A similar discussion is also lacking in the following chapter on Red Guards. Finally, the chapter on the 1989 movement provides some interesting background on student life in the 1980s but concludes by questionably designating the students’ “self-pride if not arrogance” as one of the factors of the crackdown (260).

Overall, although this is a somewhat disappointing compilation, especially in terms of conceptualization and periodization, individual chapters still offer new perspectives on certain historical episodes. Perhaps some of the contributors may yet take up the challenge of compiling a more comprehensive and diverse collection of views on student movements in twentieth-century China.