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Paper short abstract

This paper investigates the circulation and reception of Quotations from Chairman Mao (the Little Red Book) in Japan during the Cultural Revolution.

Paper long abstract

Quotations from Chairman Mao (commonly known as the Little Red Book) was an important tool through which Maoist China exported Mao Zedong Thought abroad. Patterns of its reception in different parts of the world reflect varying degrees of curiosity about and fascination with Maoist China. To date, there has been no systematic study in either English- or Japanese-language scholarship on the circulation and reception of the Little Red Book in Japan. This paper provides an overview of how the Little Red Book was disseminated in Japan and addresses several fundamental questions: Who read it? How many people read it? And how did they read it? Following the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in China, the Little Red Book triggered a boom in publication and consumption in Japan, becoming a bestseller of the time. However, this paper argues that strong sales did not necessarily indicate a wholesale acceptance of its ideology or revolutionary messages among Japanese readers. Rather, it raises the question of whether the phenomenon should be understood as reflecting the dynamics of transnational ideological contestation, marked by both reception and resistance.