Challenges deepseated assumptions about the traditionalist nature of Confucianism by providing a new interpretation of the emergence of modern Confucianism in Republican China.Confucian Iconoclasm proposes a novel account of the emergence of modern Confucian philosophy in Republican China 19121949 challenging the historiographical paradigm that modern or New Confucianism sought to preserve traditions against the iconoclasm of the May Fourth Movement. Through close textual analyses of Liang Shumings Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies 1921 and Xiong Shilis New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness 1932 Philippe Major argues that the most successful modern Confucian texts of the Republican period were nearly as iconoclastic as the most radical of May Fourth intellectuals. Questioning the strict dichotomy between radicalism and conservatism that underscores most historical accounts of the period Major shows that May Fourth and Confucian iconoclasts were engaged in a politics of antitradition aimed at the monopolization of intellectual commodities associated with universality autonomy and liberty.