The Long March Goes On
June 1, 2002
Helen Praeger Young, Choosing Revolution: Chinese Women Soldiers on the Long March (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001) 282 pages, $35, hardcover.
�Coming of age in the new China, I heard and read abundant stories about the 25,000 li Long March. Films, plays, and operas during the first two decades of the People’s Republic showed the heroic deeds performed by the Red Army soldiers as well as the bravery and tenacity they displayed in their fight against the Nationalist enemy, local despots and bandits, and in overcoming the unimaginable hardships on the march, especially when they crossed the grasslands and climbed over the snow mountains. Those are great stories, touching, inspiring, and educating. Yet, they sometimes seem so far away and unattainable
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