Review by Choice Review
How many people died? Why? These are the two enduring questions relating to the four disastrous years following the first decade of the founding of the People's Republic of China. With access to central, provincial, county, and city archives of government bureaus and party committees, Dikotter (Univ. of Hong Kong) presents a macro view of the horrors witnessed by the vast population of China between 1958 and 1962 as the Communist Party of China introduced policies intended to bolster the personal power of Mao Zedong and his allies and to rapidly increase China's economic output. The book's first three parts cover the party, personality, and policy issues that resulted in the death, by Dikotter's estimate, of some 45 million Chinese. The last three parts focus on the human aspects of the consequences of the disaster. Many parts of the stories recounted are known from studies of particular people, places, and events through government sources, village and county studies, and personal interviews. By combining new information from official government and party archives with what has already been written, Dikotter presents a picture of hubris, obdurate ideology, and political slavishness that resulted in the destruction of hundreds of millions of lives beyond those who died. Summing Up; Highly recommended. All readership levels. M. J. Frost Wittenberg University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
In 1958, Mao Zedong, perhaps influenced by Khrushchev's boast that the Soviet Union would surpass the U.S. in key aspects of industrial production within 10 years, launched China's Great Leap Forward. This was a tragically delusional effort to dramatically improve agricultural and industrial production, far beyond any realistic possibility, given China's limited economic base. The human costs of this folly were catastrophic. Dikötter, professor of modern history of China at the University of London, utilizes newly available material, including Communist Party archives and accounts by individual Chinese citizens, to chronicle these horrors in stomach-churning detail. By the time even Mao recognized his failure in 1962, Dikötter credibly asserts that as many as 45 million Chinese died from starvation, execution, and maltreatment under forced labor. Ultimate responsibility rests with Mao and his indifference to individual human suffering, but Dikötter also condemns other high-ranking party officials who recognized the failures early on but lacked the courage to challenge Mao. This is an important work illustrating the dangers of one individual holding power to force millions to fulfill his personal fantasies.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Taking advantage of newly opened Party archives, Dikotter, a University of London historian who has specialized in modern China, presents a bleak, gruesomely detailed account of perhaps history's worst famine. A decade after assuming power, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward, designed to quickly develop his impoverished nation, substituting mass action for planning and investment. A catastrophe followed. Forests were destroyed to feed 500,000 backyard blast furnaces that produced expensive but poor quality iron. Under miserable conditions, factory workers fulfilled hopelessly optimistic quotas with shoddy goods. Coerced into communes, millions of subsistence farmers neglected their fields to labor on poorly planned dams or irrigation projects; others demolished houses and barns to use as fertilizer. Falsifying figures, local officials proclaimed vast increases in food production. Shipping off the usual fraction of actual production for urban provisions and exports left little behind, so peasants starved; more than 40 million Chinese died. This is not a historical overview but an intensively researched litany of suffering, packed with statistics, grim anecdotes, and self-serving explanations by leaders responsible for the devastation. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
From 1958 to 1962, Mao Zedong oversaw a massive collectivization, announced to the world as his "Great Leap Forward," an attempt to push China, both agriculturally and industrially, into the 20th century. Instead Mao destroyed the lives of millions of Chinese, forcing them to work under inhuman conditions on "the people's" farms. A devastating famine that killed approximately 30 million resulted from poor planning, execution, and widespread corruption. When even Mao's closest colleagues began to point out this folly, Mao consolidated his power and continued down this road of devastation with the "Great Cultural Revolution" (1966-76). Dikotter (Sch. of Oriental & African Studies, Univ. of London; The Discourse of Race in Modern China) writes a compelling account of the Great Leap Forward. Verdict Aided by newly released historical documents detailing the savage infighting and backstabbing of those in power and the extent of the nationwide damage, Dikotter has produced one of the best single-volume resources on the topic. Although a scholarly, heavily footnoted work, its flowing narrative-effectively a cautionary tale on the destructive powers of misguided ambition and blind hubris-reads well. Recommended for specialists as well as interested general readers.-Glenn Masuchika, Pennsylvania State University Lib., University Park (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A direct, hard-hitting study of China's Great Leap Forward in light of newly opened archival material.Veteran China historian Diktter (Humanities/Univ. of Hong Kong, Modern History of China/Univ. of London; The Age of Openness: China Before Mao, 2008, etc.) parses this staggering tragedy into three manageable, comprehensive components: Mao Zedong's bloody-minded resolve to implement the accelerated collectivization of the countryside, and the stifling of all opposition; the effects of these devastating policies on agriculture, industry, trade, housing and nature; and the catastrophic human toll ("at least 45 million people died unnecessarily between 1958 and 1962"). Vying bombastically with the Soviet Union to overtake the Western imperialistic powers in economic production, Mao was bent on purging opposition and prodding provincial cronies to harness China's real wealthits huge labor forcein order to transform the countryside in schemes of rapid, reckless modernization. China was "in the grip of gigantism," and mass mobilization was needed to fulfill inflated targets for agricultural and industrial output. Communes tried to outdo each other in zeal, and laggards were paraded in front of others to be humiliated and tortured. Deep ploughing and close cropping, supposed "innovative methods," reaped woeful yields, and the "command economy" forced villagers "to sell grain before their own subsistence needs were met." Yet critics were cowed into silence, and Mao delivered only glowing reports to the public. Despite trickling news of crop failure, China met foreign-trade commitments by exporting grain. But by 1960, due to "unprecedented natural catastrophes," they had to adopt a humiliating policy of importing grain from capitalist markets. Meanwhile, people were dying in droves, and Diktter delivers a scathing litany of abuses visited on the most vulnerablechildren, women and the elderly.A horrifically eye-opening work of a dark period of Chinese history that desperately cries out for further examination.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
