Radicalism and Its Demise: The Chinese Nationalist Party, Factionalism, and Local Elites in Jiangsu Province, 1924-1931 (Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies)

This book chronicles the dynamics of local and central partypolitics as it describes the Nationalists' turn from radical to status-quo policies and practices. Geisert revisits important issues that continue to engage scholarship on the Republican era--in particular the social and political bases of Guomindang rule. He clarifies how Guomindang factions and to a lesser extent the Chinese Communist Party competed in local-level social movements and political struggles in Jiangsu. While most studies of modern Chinese state-making focus on government institutions, the author reminds us that the party organization must also be considered an important player in this process.

Bradley Geisert teaches history at Randolph-Macon Women's College. He has published several papers on the Guomindang in Republican China.