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

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

Frank Dikötter lives in Palo Alto, California, where he is the Milias Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong. His books have changed the way historians view China, from the classic The Discourse of Race in Modern China to his award-winning People's Trilogy documenting the lives of ordinary people under Mao.

Report

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

Product details

• Authors: Frank Dikoetter, Frank Dikotter, Frank Dikötter
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 09.02.2017
• EAN: 9781408886366
• ISBN: 978-1-4088-8636-6
• No. of pages: 448
• Dimensions: 129 mm x 198 mm x 28 mm
• Series: The Peoples Trilogy; The Peoples Trilogy
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; China, Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Disasters & Disaster Relief, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, HISTORY / Asia / China, c 1960 to c 1970, Later 20th century c 1950 to c 1999, Social and cultural history, c 1950 to c 1959, Asian History, c 1960 to c 1969, C 1945 To C 1960, Famine, Social impact of disasters / accidents (natural or man-made)