This volume examines the role of mass knowledge production—whether artistic, scientific, or technical—in China’s Great Leap Forward.

A Revolution Across Art and Science examines how laborers reimagined knowledge during a high point of radicalism in modern Chinese history. Encouraged to become curators, historians, writers, artists, technicians, scientists, and other kinds of experts, Chinese workers and peasants were mobilized to produce new knowledge in the humanities and sciences. Moving beyond the economic questions that have dominated most previous scholarship on the Great Leap Forward, this volume explores the cultural dimensions of the movement to establish the significance of mass knowledge production. Through ten case studies authored by emerging scholars, this volume offers a simultaneously empathetic and critical inquiry into PRC history and its impact on ongoing efforts to democratize knowledge around the world.