China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower

(Paperback)

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In China After Mao, award-winning historian Frank Diktter explores how the Peoples Republic of China was transformed from a backwater economy in the 1970s into the world superpower of today. His account is the first to be based on hundreds of previously unseen archival documents, from the secret minutes of top party meetings to confidential bank reports. Unfolding with great narrative sweep, this riveting, richly detailed chronicle recasts our understanding of an era that both the regime and foreign admirers celebrate as an economic miracle. In charting four decades of so-called Reform and Opening Up and Chinas emergence as a world power, Diktter tells a fascinating tale of contradictions and illusions, of shadow banking, anti-corruption drives and extreme state wealth standing alongside everyday poverty. He examines Chinas approach to the 2008 financial crash, the countrys increasing hostility towards perceived Western interference and its development into a thoroughly entrenched dictatorship one equipped with a sprawling security apparatus and the most sophisticated surveillance system in the world. Ultimately, the book concludes, the communist partys goal was never to join the democratic sphere, but to resist it and then defeat it.

Reviews

PRAISE FOR THE PEOPLE'S TRILOGY: Together, these three books constitute a major contribution to scholarship on modern China, one that is unequalled, certainly in the English language * Literary Review *
Harrowing and brilliant ... This is the book that changes your life -- Ben Macintyre * The Times *
Diktter's achievement in this book is remarkable * Sunday Times *
A brilliant and powerful account ...This excellent book is horrific but essential reading for all who want to understand the darkness that lies at the heart of one of the world's most important revolutions * Guardian *
Powerful ... Bold and startling ... Diktter must be admired for the manner in which he puts a human scale on the enormous barbarities of the communist takeover of China. We cannot begin to understand modern China without being aware of the blood-drenched tale Diktter so ably relates -- Kwasi Kwarteng * Evening Standard *
A mesmerizing account of the communist revolution in China, and the subsequent transformation of hundreds of millions of lives through violence, coercion and broken promises. The Chinese themselves suppress this history, but for anyone who wants to understand the current Beijing regime, this is essential background reading -- Anne Applebaum
Diktter performs here a tremendous service by making legible the hugely controversial origins of the present Chinese political order -- Tim Snyder
A remarkable work of archival research. Diktter rarely, if ever, allows the story of central government to dominate by merely reporting a top-down directive. Instead, he tracks down the grassroots impact of Communist policies ... In so doing, he uncovers astonishing stories of party-led inhumanity and also popular resistance ... Diktter sustains a strong human dimension to the story by skillfully weaving individual voices through the length of the book * Financial Times *
Startling ... Diktter's work has aimed to demolish almost every claim to truth or virtue the Chinese Communist party ever made. He combines a vivid eye for detail with a historian's diligence in the archives. Powerful ... Diktter is unsparing in his account of the effects of the communist rule * Observer *
Magnificent ... 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 -- Michael Sheridan * Sunday Times *

Author Bio

Frank Diktter is Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. 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. He is married and lives in Hong Kong.