Mao's China: A History of the People's Republic

New York: The Free Press - A Division of Macmillan Poublishiing Co., Inc., 1977. First Printing . Hard Back. Near Fine/Near Fine. 6 1/2" X 9 1/2. 416 Pages Indexed. Red boards and red endpapers. Tight book with faultless interior text pages. Board corners are pointed. Dust jacketed protected with mylar and $17.95 price is unclipped. China: the country Karl Marx once referred to as a living fossil emerged in 1949 as a people's republic -not only the most populous country in the world but one of the most backward. China's evolution since then has been one of the truly remarkable stories of modern times. Mao's China offers a sweeping, in- depth account of a singular historical era-the period of socialist construction in China under the guidance of its most formidable leader. Exploring the country's political, social, economic, and intellectual development, it covers every major stage and campaign, personality and event of modern China. The book begins by examining the social and political background from which the Chinese communists emerged, and the conditions they encountered and transformed prior to 1949. Meisner then narrates and interprets the full history of the Maoist era from the founding of the People's Republic on October 1, 1949, to the death of Chairman Mao on September 9, 1976. Mao's China looks at the successes and failures of the era in the light of the Chinese communists' own goals, and offers valuable comparisons with the experience of the Soviet Union. It illuminates the chief problems which were central to China's development, and which have involved every socialist revolution: agrarian reform, industrialization, the organization of the new state, the problem of bureaucracy, the question of permanent revolution, and conservative reactions to radical social change. This is the first history of the People's Republic of China with the scope and depth to comprehensively assess the critical first quarter-century of one of the most important national transformations in the history of the modern world