Acclaimed by the Daily Mail as 'definitive and harrowing' , this is the final volume of ‘The People’s Trilogy', begun by the Samuel Johnson prize-winning Mao's Great Famine.
Frank Dikötter 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 Dikötter is married and lives in Hong Kong.
Definitive and harrowing
*Daily Mail*
Dikötter 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
*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
*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
*The Times*
Given the tortuous nature of the event, what contribution does
Frank Dikötter’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
Dikötter 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 … Dikötter 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
*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 …
Dikötter 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 Dikötter 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
Dikötter’s book is astonishing ... but the book wears this research
lightly, with the human story coming through strongly
*Irish Times*
Dikötter’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*
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