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Freedom of the Press in China: A Conceptual History, 1831–1949 Yi Guo Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 264 pp. €99.00 ISBN 978-94-6372-611-5

The reader need not fear that I have taken these words out of context. In context they are as Delphic. Their real import seems to be to say, “I, too, am a member of the modern Chinese literature field as it exists today.” Actually, though, Chen’s reasoning is fine, and her book would be stronger, without such tags. “Post-memory” is another of the book’s thought-provoking topics. Chen uses it to mean memories in the minds of the descendants of victims, perpetrators, or bystanders of atrocity. When trauma is severe, second-generation memory can fuse with first-hand memory until the two are almost equally haunting. Iris Chang was not yet born when the Nanjing massacre happened, but after she heard about it from her grandmother, studied it at length, and wrote The Rape of Nanking, she so embraced its horror that eventually (along with other factors) it drove her to suicide. But if victimhood can be, in a sense, inherited, can “perpetratorhood” be as well? Should Japanese born after the war bear a personal responsibility to apologize to Chinese and Korean people? Similar questions can be asked in many contexts, of course. Post-memory is a rich intellectual field. The theme of “never again” runs through Chen’s book. One the most oft-cited reasons for remembering disasters, not only in China but elsewhere, is to prevent recurrence. During China’s “scar” years in the late 1970s, Chinese officials and intellectuals were virtually unanimous in saying that nothing like the Cultural Revolution could ever happen again. Today, with the CCP again stoking nationalism, touting a brave new world, washing the minds of youth, and finding very considerable success in all these endeavours, is another paroxysm really so unthinkable? It is a question to bear in mind as one reads Chen’s book.