Zhao Gang: The Road to Serfdom

The wandering cosmopolitan intellectual, called back to the motherland from studies and travels abroad to aid selflessly in building the nation, is a trope of modern Chinese history. A generation of leading scholars, their passions ignited by the nationalist awakening of the 1919 May Fourth Movement, sought advanced education in Japan, Europe, and the United States before returning to the caves of Yan’an. They moved from there into the cultural and academic establishment of the early People’s Republic, and ultimately, in many cases, to premature ends during the
various campaigns that followed.