The final volume of 'The People's Trilogy', completing the unprecedented series on Maoist China, seen from the perspectives of ordinary people, begun by the Samuel Johnson prize-winning Mao's Great Famine.
Between 1965 and 1969 Mao Zedong unleashed violent campaigns in order to dispose of all who had previously opposed him after the Great Leap Forward. China became the site of one of the most deadly mass killings in human history, comparable to the gulags and the Holocaust. Entire villages were consumed by vehemence; old grudges avenged in the name of revolutionary purity, friends tormented by those close to them, victims systematically killed and cannibalised.
Until now, this devastating period of history has remained hidden, but with access to a wealth of new sources including interviews, untouched archives and self-published autobiographies offering insights that cannot be gleaned from official accounts, Dik.tter drastically alters our understanding of Maoist China, revealing in harrowing detail how the lives of ordinary people were affected by the radical regime.
The Cultural Revolution completes Dikotter's magisterial and ground-breaking 'People's Trilogy' on China under Mao, highlighting the truth about those that suffered at the hands of the Red Guards and the premature deaths of tens of millions. Here Dik.tter powerfully recounts the debauchery which the communists set loose, finally giving a voice to the revolutionary masses in a remarkable and authoritative work.
