Beijing Spring

The Beijing Spring of 1989 is now a historic milestone. For fifty days, the world watched Tiananmen Square as a generation of China's young people stood up and spoke about democracy and freedom. Then, horrified, the world witnessed a brutal massacre of young demonstrators as China's leaders enacted their response: crackdown, repression, denial. David and Peter Turnley's photo essay is the definitive visual record of the democracy movement, from the euphoric occupation of the square to the shocking bloodletting. Through their photographs, Beijing once more comes to life: the students' arrival after the mid-April death of liberal leader Hu Yaobang, their commemoration of an earlier May 4 uprising, the seven-day hunger strike, the visit from Mikhail Gorbachev, and the amazing two-week resistance to martial law. Peter arrived in Beijing the day after Hu Yaobang died and, with great insight and empathy, documented the upheaval until well into the period of repression after the massacre. His twin brother, David Turnley, a photographic correspondent for the Detroit Free Press, arrived just after the declaration of martial law and courageously bore witness to the battle on Changan Avenue the morning of June 4. An accompanying essay by Newsweek's Melinda Liu brings us into the streets of Beijing. Her insighted culled during a decade of China-watching, help part the veil of secrecy that normally obscures maneuvers by the Chinese leadership. In an informative introduction, Orville Schell, the noted writer and China scholar, puts these events into the broader context of a turbulent century in Chinese - and world - history. As China embarks on a massive "public education" campaign aimed at erasing these events from its history, this volume becomes urgent documentation of this 1989 Beijing Spring.