Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62 - Softcover

Dikötter, Frank

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1408810034 ISBN 13: 9781408810033

Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 2011

Synopsis

Winner of the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2011

Between 1958 and 1962, 45 million Chinese people were worked, starved or beaten to death.
Mao Zedong threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up with and overtake the Western world in less than fifteen years. It led to one of the greatest catastrophes the world has ever known.

Dikotter's extraordinary research within Chinese archives brings together for the first time what happened in the corridors of power with the everyday experiences of ordinary people, giving voice to the dead and disenfranchised. This groundbreaking account definitively recasts the history of the People's Republic of China.

About this title

Review:

'A masterpiece of historical investigation into one of the world's greatest crimes' (New Statesman)

'It is hard to exaggerate the achievement of this book in proving that Mao caused the famine ... only thanks to brilliant scholarship such as this will the heirs of the vanished millions finally learn what happened to their ancestors' (Sunday Times)

'The most authoritative and comprehensive study of the biggest and most lethal famine in history. A must-read' (Jung Chang)

'Gripping ... Prof Dikötter's painstaking analysis of the archives shows Mao's regime resulted in the greatest "man-made famine" the world has ever seen' (Daily Express)

Book Description:

An unprecedented, groundbreaking history of China's Great Famine

Winner of the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize 2011

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1408810034
• ISBN 13: 9781408810033
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448