"When one drives into the Jinggang Mountains (also known as the Jinggangshan), it is impossible to escape the celebration of revolutionary history and the role of Mao Zedong. As one is told repeatedly, you are entering the "cradle of the revolution." Maoping, once the mountain lair of Yuan Wencai, the bandit leader who would join forces with Mao, is now a thriving town of about 4,500. There are now several memorial halls recalling the heroic deeds of the Red Army. Re-enactors, sent by work units, for patriotic education place wreaths before pictures of revolutionary heroes. Although some visitors seem to be having too much fun to be absorbing the lessons of the revolutionary past, perhaps most come away with an even more unquestioning acceptance of the official historiography that places Mao and his Jinggangshan redoubt at the center of a revolutionary history that has, after many twists and turns, given birth to a wealthy and powerful contemporary China, a country very different from the poor, war-torn, and exploited China of a century ago"--