Product Description

Where is China heading in the 21st century? Can its Communist Party survive or is it being challenged by growing inequality and unrest? Will the US and China cooperate or compete in a dangerous future? Will China's economic boom be brought to a halt by environmental catastrophe? In this highly readable account, John Gittings provides the essential information to help answer these vital questions for the world. In the 60 years since Mao Zedong took the road to victory, China has undergone not one but two revolutions. The first swept away the old corrupt society and sought to build a 'spotless' new socialism behind closed doors; the second since Mao's death has focused on an economic agenda which accepts the goals of global capitalism. From Mao to the global market, Gittings charts this complex but epic tale and concludes with some hard questions for the future.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #172247 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Guardian, 7 August 2006
'the history of modern China is an epic one, told superbly by Gittings'

Review
The Changing Face of China By John Gittings is the most comprehensive of the four books. (Socialist Review. )

The book contains a wealth of information and is certainly a good counterweight to recent books which emphasise Mao's personality as the key to China's history in the 20th Century. (Guardian )

the history of modern China is an epic one, told superbly by Gittings (Guardian )

David Rennie, Daily Telegraph
"Magisterial... Impressive..."

Customer Reviews

The best comprehensive book on China's current history
This book covers everything you really need to know of how China came to be from the start of its communism with Mao to the modern day market economy. It shows the clear progression of how events triggered each other and how the main personalities shaped the present. It shows how the Tiananmen masssacres led to the market economy that you have now and the reason is not as idealistic as you want to believe. It has evrything from Chiang Kai-shek to the enviromental problems currently faced and it's all beautifully written.

Dry - and with a hidden agenda
The author of this book clearly knows what he is talking about. His familiarity with the PRC stretches back several decades, and he quotes extensively from a wide range of sources in Chinese. Since I specialise in ancient China, I cannot lay claim to any authority in the field of modern history, but, nevertheless, I think a few remarks about this book are in place.

For my taste, G.'s narrative remains far too much within the ideological framework of Communist discourse. It creates the impression that not much else happened in China after 1949 except of discussions about the right path to Communism within the Party leadership. Sometimes, though deplorably rarely, we read about people's reactions to these discussions, but the top-down approach to history is never abandoned throughout the book.

While ideological and power political struggles were certainly of primary importance, the disruptive and at the same time repressive impact Communist ideology had on the population right into the 1980s merits closer attention. As it is, the book is neither fish nor flesh. For a social history, it simply does not say enough about society, and for a political history, it is not sufficiently systematic. For example, it does not even describe the constitutional and institutional foundations of the PRC, its formal and informal power structures or its official and civil organisations. The focus on ideological discourse also impairs the books readbility since the constant regurgitation of garbled Party prose makes absolutely dire reading.

However, there is a more serious point to discuss. I strongly suspect that G. consciously pursues an apologetic intention and tries to play down the unimaginably devastating effects of Communist rule. For instance, as an illustration of how improvements in sanitation and health care raised people's life expectancy immediately after the Communist takeover, we learn that "[t]he mortality rate fell from 25 per thousand before 1949 to 17 in 1951 (and 10.8 by 1957)" (p. 23). It is hardly surprising that a society ravaged by war such as China before 1949 should have a higher mortality rate than in peacetime. To be in a position to gauge the effect of new health measures, it would be necessary to identify the places where they were actually carried out and calculate their effects in comparison with other, neglected locations. But it is even more conspicuous that G.'s comparison of mortality rates stops with 1957, since mortality rose again dramatically in the following years as a result of the so-called "Great Leap Forward". This omission may not be accidental, as G.'s treatment of the "Great Leap" shows. His narrative of this nationwide mass-mobilisation campaign focuses on rather harmless-looking inner-party struggles about the proper Socialist economic policy for China. In the section devoted to the "Great Leap", he does not lose a single word about the things that happened outside the Party offices and cadre gatherings. He remains completely silent about the 20-30 million people who died as a result of these ideological disagreements within the Party leadership (pp. 32-35). Later, though, G. does acknowledge that there were "more than 20 million 'excess deaths'" (p. 121), and he mentions that as the result of a local famine "out of a population of 380,000, more than 60,000 died" during this period (p. 126). At some other point, however, he cannot restrain himself from applauding the "Great Leap" for "absorb[ing] the energy and mobiliz[ing] the enthusiasm of a large activist minority" (p. 64). One just wonders whether all this "energy" and "enthusiasm" was cleverly employed in the smelting of useless iron and other mass campaigns that diverted vital parts of the labour force from agriculture and thereby caused widespread starvation.

In sum, although it would be difficult to sustain the claim that G. twists the truth or lies by omission in this particular case, he certainly scatters crucial information in such a way over the entire book that a reader who lacks familiarity with the topic and does not pay close attention might easily get a completely skewed impression of what was actually going on. This is, by the way, a very common technique in ancient Chinese historiography used to achieve obfuscation without having to resort to outright lies.

In a long and tortuous endnote to his "Introduction", G. takes pain to assure his readers that he is aware of the human costs of Communist rule but will nevertheless not daemonise the PRC or its leadership. Symptomatically, however, he also states "that Mao was an original thinker whose arguments should be taken seriously" (p. 17). Although he seems to feel slightly embarrassed about it, it appears that G. is one of the last believers in Maoism - and it shows in his book.

Detailed and Comprehensive
This book is an incredibly detailed and in-depth look at the political and social history of China from the beginning of Chairman Mao's premiership to the present day, delving into each segment of China's political history with painstaking attention to detail.

The result is sometimes heavy and there are undoubtedly sections of this book that will weigh down all but the most hardened political animals. The research that John Gittings has provided in this book, however, is startling, and very, very impressive.

The best attribute of this book, however, is it's balance. It is not a pro-communist, one-sided travel brochure, neither is it the usual Western anti-Chinese propaganda, rather, it is a balanced and reasonably fair look at both the positive effects of Mao's cultural revolution, the fantastic liberation of the peasants, but also the current bureaucracy of the CCCP, and the horror that was the Tiannemen Square massacre. Most of this book is colourful, interesting and informative, particularly the sections that focus on various Chinese literature and poetry. The description of the USA's cowardly and disgraceful attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999 also makes the blood boil. Events like these help show just how spiteful and antagonistic American foreign policy is and always has been, and such events are a shameful reminder of the cretinous hypocrisy of the West.

There is also a great deal of humour in this book. Demonstrations against the US bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade saw people carrying placards which contained some truly amusing slogans such as "I'd rather die of starvation than eat a McDonalds, I'd rather die of thirst than drink Coca-Cola." This is not only amusing, but also very encouraging - a positive reminder that there are still people in this world who are against the three sickening evils of Americanisation, Imperialism, and Capitalism. Other funny moments include detailed descriptions of the various sniping and verbal sparring that took place between various high profile members of the CCCP in the wake of Mao's death. With a dry sense of humour, Gittings describes a pettiness and bureaucracy that is verging on the comical, in a party that lost a lot of it's initial goals after the death of Mao. There is also much evidence of the deadpan Chinese humour, particularly from peasants who describe a local businessman as 'Mr.Five Dollars every time he opens the door'.

This book is not just for politic enthusiasts, or ardent China enthusiasts, but for anyone who enjoys a challenging, informative and frequently amusing read.