The Tiananmen protests and Beijing massacre of 1989 were a major turning point in recent Chinese history. In this new analysis of 1989, Jeremy Brown tells the vivid stories of participants and victims, exploring the nationwide scope of the democracy movement and the brutal crackdown that crushed it. At each critical juncture in the spring of 1989, demonstrators and decision makers agonized over difficult choices and saw how events could have unfolded differently. The alternative paths that participants imagined confirm that bloodshed was neither inevitable nor necessary. Using a wide range of previously untapped sources and examining how ordinary citizens throughout China experienced the crackdown after the massacre, this ambitious social history sheds fresh light on events that continue to reverberate in China to this day.

‘Brown’s June Fourth challenges our understanding of the 1989 Tiananmen protests that continue to haunt China today in a vivid account, richly documented, well-told and thoughtfully analyzed. This will be the standard history of Tiananmen for a generation.’

Timothy Cheek - author of The Intellectual in Modern Chinese History

‘In a vivid narrative spanning China of the 1980s to June 4th, 1989 and its aftermath, Jeremy Brown’s restrained prose pricks at the conscience of a nation, so that we too ask ‘what if’ - a question as relevant today as then.’

Denise Chong - author of Egg on Mao

‘Brown re-evaluates sources with a fresh critical eye, illuminates the lives of ordinary people, including minorities and people in the provinces, and shows not just what happened but what might have happened if certain human choices had been different.’

Perry Link - author of Anatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics

‘In a powerful and sometimes almost personal account of the 1989 protests, Brown retells the story of what happened in Beijing and elsewhere in China using perspectives often overlooked by scholars.’

Lev Nachman Source: L.A. Review of Books

'This lucid, thoughtful, and often riveting account by Jeremy Brown, a leading social historian of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), revisits almost every dimension of the dramatic upheaval of 1989 and forces us to examine afresh what we thought we already knew.'

Andrew G. Walder Source: Journal of Cold War Studies

‘Brown’s book is of a critical underrepresented genre that I think will be of substantive use to many: a clear, nuanced, and comprehensive accounting of an event that so many of us teach but, because of the sheer amount of information and accounts that exist, don’t always teach well.’

Gina Anne Tam Source: Pacific Affairs

‘Brown skillfully assesses the turbulent June 1989 protests and massacre that occurred in Beijing through a historical rather than a political lens. … Recommended.’

S. C. Hart Source: Choice

'Brown’s riveting writing takes readers to streets, provinces, and lives that bring the complexity and legacies of 1989 into sharper focus.'

Jessica DiCarlo Source: Eurasian Geography and Economics