Falun Gong and the Future of China Book

David Ownby writes a comprehensive and scholarly history of Falun Gong (法輪功 also known as Falun Dafa 法輪大法) - one of the most controversial new religious movements to arise in China in the last thirty years. Yet, Owenby convincingly links Falun Gong to the Imperial-era redemptive societies and manifestations of popular religion that arose cyclically throughout Chinese history. Neither is Falun Gong an isolated case, for during the late 80s and 90s, qigong was extremely popular and again Owenby links the history of the qigong boom to that of Falun Gong and shows how the two are related.

His work also contains illuminating first-hand research with practitioners in the Chinese diaspora in America, whose socio-ethnological circumstances counter those popularised by the Chinese government: Falun Gong practitioners are not (at least in America) poor, uneducated farmers but well-educated middle class citizens. Owenby also examines the on-going struggle between Falun Gong and the Chinese state, charting it from the demonstration outside Zhongnanhai on April 25th 1999 to 2005.

Altogether, this book is a rare objective account of Falun Gong - something academia needs to counter the exaggerations from not only the Chinese government but also from Falun Gong itself. He sympathises with the Falun Gong practitioners detained and tortured and ultimately notes that Falun Gong, like other redemptive societies and religious movements in China have a great power to mobilise popular support and deeply unsettle and often provoke the Chinese state to grave action.