Gao Jianhua
Born Red: A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution is an autobiography of Gao Yuan (Chinese: 高原; pinyin: Gāo Yuán, born 1952) and his recollection of experiences during the Cultural Revolution in China. Stanford University Press is the publisher. The foreword was written by William Joseph. At the time Gao Yuan was a post-graduate student at Stanford University.
Stanley Rosen of the Journal of Asian Studies said that the book was aimed at audiences broader than just specialists in China. Rosen said that the book "does not provide enough chronological detail or related political information to anchor the general reader in the larger milieu" but that the foreword, which he called "admirable", "fills in most of these gaps".
Lucian W. Pye, author of a book review for The China Quarterly, wrote that Born Red "is a step-by-step, blow-by-blow account of how a bright Chinese middle-school student went about "making revolution," the name Red Guards gave their blend of high jinks and vicious cruelty." He argued that the book "is another big nail in the coffin of the once popular theory that the Cultural Revolution was a consciousness raising [sic], idealism inspiring movement".
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