Radicalism and Its Demise: The Chinese Nationalist Party, Factionalism, and Local Elites in Jiangsu Province, 1924-1931

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.