Anne Applebaum reports on "the first proper history of China's Great Famine, a catastrophe partly engineered by the Chinese Communist Party and its first leader, Mao Zedong."
"I call this book Tombstone," the author, Yang Jisheng, writes
in the opening paragraph. "It is a tombstone for my father who died of
hunger in 1959, for the 36 million Chinese who also died of hunger, for
the system that caused their death, and perhaps for myself for writing
this book."
"Tombstone" has not been translated. Nevertheless, rumors of its contents and short excerpts are already ricocheting around the world (I first learned of it recently in California, from an excited Australian historian). Based on a decade's worth of interviews and unprecedented access to documents and statistics, "Tombstone" -- in two volumes and 1,100 pages -- establishes beyond any doubt that China's misguided charge toward industrialization -- Mao's "Great Leap Forward" -- was an utter disaster.
"Tombstone" has not been translated. Nevertheless, rumors of its contents and short excerpts are already ricocheting around the world (I first learned of it recently in California, from an excited Australian historian). Based on a decade's worth of interviews and unprecedented access to documents and statistics, "Tombstone" -- in two volumes and 1,100 pages -- establishes beyond any doubt that China's misguided charge toward industrialization -- Mao's "Great Leap Forward" -- was an utter disaster.
In addition to the Applebaum article, see this article, linked in the quote two paragraphs above.