The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this book is now available. This
compelling book provides a vivid firsthand account of the student
demonstrations and massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Uniquely placed
as a Western observer drawn into active participation through Chinese
friends in the uprising, Philip J Cunningham offers a remarkable
day-by-day account of Beijing students desperately trying to secure the
most coveted political real estate in China in the face of ever more
daunting government countermoves. Tiananmen Moon takes the reader into
the thick of the 1989 protests while also following the parallel
response of an unprepared but resourceful Western media. Cunningham
recounts rare vignettes about life in Tiananmen Square under student
leadership, including a near riot when a reporter is mistaken for
Gorbachev, the saga of a tearful leader who quits and dictates her last
will and testament to the author, and a dramatic account of futile
resistance in the face of an unforgiving crackdown. He chronicles the
opportunistic and awkward tango between naive student activists and
jaded foreign journalists, in which, after a month of mutual courting,
the tables turn and the now-savvy students watch the journalists,
seduced and confused, run circles just trying to keep up. During the
hunger strike under the light of a full moon, China bares its conflicted
soul to the world, the mournful cry for reform amplified by the
footsteps of a million peaceful marchers. This remarkable testament to a
searing month that changed China forever serves as a witness to the rise
and fall of an uprising, capturing the plaintive and lyrical beauty of a
dream that endures and continues to haunt the country today.
