Unexpected Canonisation: Defoe's Robinson Crusoe in Maoist China.

This article examines the socio-political motivations behind the canonisation of Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel *Robinson Crusoe* in Maoist China, despite its apparent glorification of capitalist and colonialist values. The novel was included in the Party-sponsored *Masterpieces of Foreign Classical Literature* series in 1959 and was reinterpreted through "interpretive manipulation" by Chinese critics to align with Maoist ideals, particularly emphasizing Crusoe's asceticism, hard work, and self-reliance as models for the communist New Man and the Great Leap Forward campaign. While Maoist commentators acknowledged the novel's bourgeois origins, they highlighted its celebration of labor and struggle against nature as consonant with the Party's utopian project and educational goals. The study illustrates how *Robinson Crusoe* was selectively appropriated to serve ideological purposes in Maoist China, demonstrating the novel's capacity to acquire new meanings in different cultural and political contexts.