China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower

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There are degrees of ignorance, nevertheless, and Dikötter is one of today’s major historians of China: he has been mining Chinese primary sources for decades – party records, provincial budgets and, when available, official records. For this volume, he draws on 600 documents from municipal and provincial archives, as well as conventional sources such as Chinese news media. MyHoover delivers a personalized experience at Hoover.org. In a few easy steps, create an account and receive the most recent analysis from Hoover fellows tailored to your specific policy interests.

China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower – The Irish Times China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower – The Irish Times

I'm talking myself into changing my review to three stars - but I'll leave it at four (with some regrets obviously).

Frank Dikötter is a Dutch historian specialized in modern China. He is currently a professor of humanities at the University of Hong Kong. Dikötter is known for his research on the Maoist era and his books, including "Mao's Great Famine," which won the 2011 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. “China After Mao” is Dikötter’s recapture of Chinese history between Mao’s death in 1976 and Xi Jinping’s throning in 2012. Contrary to the prevailing narrative of the “China miracle,” Dikötter describes China’s journey as a tyrannic ruler class stumbling through economic development and globalization. Dikötter’s work is hailed as a correction of the popular view, presenting a different story based on solid evidence. However, “China After Mao” is not a complete recount and should be considered together with other works. Every piece of information,” Dikötter writes, “is unreliable, partial or distorted. Where China is concerned,” he concludes, “we don’t even know what we don’t know.”

China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower - Goodreads

In China After Mao , award-winning author Frank Dikötter delves into the history of China under the communist party – from the death of Chairman Mao in 1976 up until the moment when Xi Jinping stepped to the fore in 2012. Just bear in mind that if you don't have a serious depth of interest in Chinese economics and society in the 70s and 80s and want a rather general introduction to history and politics of the period you should rather look somewhere else. From the Samuel Johnson Prize-winning author of Mao's Great Famine, a timely and compelling account of China in the wake of Chairman Mao Der Autor begann 1985 in Tianjin sein Sinologiestudium, als es im gesamten Land weniger als 20 000 Privatfahrzeuge gab. 10 Jahre später nutzt er die Phase der erstmaligen Öffnung von Archiven zur Recherche. Seine Archivstudien in gut einem Dutzend Archiven, sowie Presseartikel und unveröffentlichte Erinnerungen von Zeitzeugen vermitteln ein kenntnisreiches China-Bild mit Focus auf die Wirtschaft des autoritär von der Kommunistischen Partei regierten Staates.MyHome.ie (Opens in new window) • Top 1000 • The Gloss (Opens in new window) • Recruit Ireland (Opens in new window) • Irish Times Training (Opens in new window)

China After Mao, The Rise of a Superpower by Frank Dikotter China After Mao, The Rise of a Superpower by Frank Dikotter

Isabel Hilton is a writer, broadcaster and visiting professor at the Lau Institute, King’s College London The scandal that followed – the arrest of Bo and his wife, her trial for the murder of a British businessman, the rumours of an attempted coup d’etat and the subsequent purges – were the foundational events of Xi’s final steps to power. Xi has conducted repeated purges ever since, under the guise of the longest anti-corruption campaign in history, consolidating power in his own hands by setting up a series of “leading small groups” which he heads, and writing his “thought” into the constitution of the party and the country, while tearing up Deng Xiaoping’s constitutional safeguards against a recurrence of the kind of personality cult and dictatorship perpetrated by Mao Zedong. As the authors point out, Xi does not talk much about Mao but he studiously imitates him. He has built an ideological apparatus that criminalises dissenting views of history and seeks to fuse the idea of the party, the country, the state and the person of Xi into one unchallengeable monolith The recently concluded twentieth party Congress has evinced an unprecedented interest in China. The emergence of China in the post-WTO accession era and its complex political and economic structure in the name of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ has been an enigma to even those who have a keen interest in current political developments. Zhao Ziyang seen supporting Tiananmen protests, supporting thesis that popular discontent only poses a real threat if used for intra-elite conflict

Frank Dikötter, in his research for this history of the People’s Republic since Mao Zedong’s death, benefited from an unprecedented opening-up of party archives from 1996 on, which lasted until Xi Jinping’s accession to power a decade ago. It’s an ironic detail, given that China After Mao covers the period marked by Deng Xiaoping’s vaunted “reform and opening up” that would ultimately change China irrevocably.