ABSTRACT
Some of the revisions would have reflected shifts in the author's own understanding of specific aspects of the movement. Other revisions would have addressed new issues raised in recent publications that analyze the meaning of the events of 1989 in Chinese and world history. Some other authors argue, history is not (as some postmodernists would have us believe) "a mere discourse on other discourses", in which there is no "truth" to be found but only "truth-effects" to be achieved through narrative tricks. The case Grant Hardy makes for the position in regard to Sima Qian is impressive, but his arguments have considerably less validity where late twentieth century texts are concerned. This is because, by this point, most of the Chinese authors in question are people who have been heavily influenced by imported romantic metanarratives of linear progress and social evolution.
