Cultural Revolution - Softcover

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Softcover

ISBN 10: 1408856522 ISBN 13: 9781408856529

Publisher: GARDNERS VI BOOKS AMS006, 2017

Synopsis

Cultural Revolution

About this title

About the Author

Frank Dikoetter is Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and Professor of the Modern History of China at the University of London. He has pioneered the use of archival sources and published ten books that have changed the way historians view and understand China, from the classic The Discourse of Race in Modern China (1992) to his last book entitled The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957 (2013). Frank Dikoetter is married and lives in Hong Kong.

Review

Definitive and harrowing -- Book of the Week * Daily Mail * Dikoetter never allows his intense account to degenerate into melodrama. Networks of power and information are carefully traced, revealing a movement that spiralled into general score-settling on such a scale that Mao and his allies had only intermittent control ... A fascinating account of how people twisted or resisted the aims of Mao's movement * Daily Telegraph * Definitive and harrowing -- Roger Lewis, Book of the Week * Daily Mail * Magnificent ... The author gives full acknowledgement to memoirs and scholarly works but it is his own archival research, allied to a piercing critique, that lifts the book to a higher level. He has mastered the details so well that with the most sparing use of description he weaves a vivid tapestry of China at the time ... This brilliant book leaves no doubt that Mao almost ruined China and left a legacy of paranoia that still grips its modern dictatorship under the latest autocrat, Xi Jinping -- Michael Sheridan * Sunday Times * The murderous frenzy of the times, which tore apart friends and families, not to speak of the Communist party itself, is powerfully conveyed -- Book of the Week * The Times * Given the tortuous nature of the event, what contribution does Frank Dikoetter's new book make to our understanding of the Cultural Revolution? The answer is an immense one. He sheds important new light on what has long been a dark (in several respects) period in Chinese history ... The Cultural Revolution exposes, in measured prose and well-documented analysis, the impact of communist rule in a period of extraordinary stress, tension and violence, most of it unleashed by the Party itself. Together, these three books, which Dikoetter calls the `People's Trilogy', constitute a major contribution to scholarship on modern China, one that is unequalled, certainly in the English language ... There is something simply unanswerable about many of his judgments on the effects of almost seventy years of communism in China. Much of this has to do with his use of documents from official archives in China, to which access is difficult ... his patience and endurance must be considerable and his Chinese-language skills formidable .... both revealing and rewarding reading - for specialists and non-specialists alike * Literary Review * Gripping, horrific ... A significant event in our understanding of modern China * International New York Times * A fine, sharp study of [a] tumultuous, elusive era ... Excellent follow-up to his groundbreaking previous work ... Dikoetter tells a harrowing tale of unbelievable suffering. A potent combination of precise history and moving examples * Kirkus * Outstanding * The Week * Searing * Irish Times * During 10 years of insanity, between 1.5m and 2m people lost their lives. It is all chillingly documented in Frank Dikotter's brilliant new book -- Niall Ferguson * Sunday Times * Magisterial * New Statesman * His "people's trilogy" ... has been hailed as the seminal English language work on the subject. The trilogy's enduring value lies in its unstinting description of the horrors of life under Mao ... Dikoetter has done much to ensure that we see the full horror of what happened under Mao * Sunday Times * A significant event in our understanding of modern China * Scotland on Sunday * It includes colourful sketches of famous individuals, a fast-paced account of key political events, and some interesting discussions of how ordinary people experienced and contributed to specific Cultural Revolution episodes ... Impressive chapters on the early 1970s that explore and celebrate grassroots developments * Financial Times * A detailed, sober, bleak reminder of the horror and chaos unleashed by Mao Zedong * Tablet * Superb * Tribune * What sets Dikoetter apart from many other historians of this period is his obsession with detail and insistence on bringing the story back to the individual account ... The level of research in Dikoetter's book is astonishing ... but the book wears this research lightly, with the human story coming through strongly * Irish Times * Dikoetter's well-researched and readable new book on the Cultural Revolution's causes and consequences is a crucial reminder of the tragedies, miscalculations and human costs of Mao's last experiment * Guardian * A tragic and salutary history * Catholic Herald * The concluding volume of Dikotter's superb trilogy on Mao Tse-tung's China is deeply disturbing * Sunday Times * `An eye-opener and a page-turner' * Daily Mail * A revelatory look at a seismic upheaval that has left an indelible imprint on the country * The Sunday Times *

About this edition

• Publisher: GARDNERS VI BOOKS AMS006
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1408856522
• ISBN 13: 9781408856529
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 396