China After Mao

A Leading Historian Of Modern China. He Is A Rare Scholar, Adept In Both Russian And Chinese . . . Combined With This Linguistic Skill, Diktter Has A WriterS Gift Evening Standard From The Samuel Johnson Prize-Winning Author Of MaoS Great Famine, A Timely And Compelling Account Of China In The Wake Of Chairman Mao 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.