“From the Caves to the Square” features photographs of the Tiananmen Square movement of 1989 by David E. Apter and is accompanied by a small collection of published material from the library's extensive holdings on China.

Professor Apter writes: “Following the famous Long March, the remnants of the Chinese Communist forces holed up in caves in Yanan where from 1936 to 1947, they created what might be called the ‘New Jerusalem’ of the Chinese revolution. It was there that Mao propounded many of his theses, the more pithy sayings later being incorporated into the Little Red Book of the Cultural Revolution. From this point, the Communists began their sweep to power culminating in the proclamation of the Peoples’ Republic in 1949 in Tiananmen Square. It was here in the spring of 1989 that the generation that inherited the revolution began their protest movement in favor of democracy. It was a movement that ended tragically and yet it remains a monument to the unfinished business of the Chinese revolution. This exhibit of photographs is a small homage to and testimony of the courage of those who tried to give voice to democratic aspirations.”

The exhibit will be on display through the end of December 2005.