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The Great Transformation

China’s Road from Revolution to Reform
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Brief Description
The first thorough account of a formative and little understood chapter in Chinese history Almost every page contains an eye-opening detail. . . . The Great Transformation evokes the multiple paths, ideas and possibilities that have shaped, and continue to shape, China's present. β€” Julia Lovell,... Read More
Format: Hardback
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The first thorough account of a formative and little understood chapter in Chinese history

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The first thorough account of a formative and little understood chapter in Chinese history

Almost every page contains an eye-opening detail. . . . The Great Transformation evokes the multiple paths, ideas and possibilities that have shaped, and continue to shape, China's present. β€” Julia Lovell, Financial Times

Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian chronicle how an impoverished and terrorised China experienced radical political changes in the long 1970s and how ordinary people broke free from the beliefs that had shaped their lives during Mao's Cultural Revolution. These changes, and the unprecedented and sustained economic growth that followed, transformed China and the world.

In this rigorous account, Westad and Chen construct a panorama of catastrophe and progress in China. They chronicle China's gradual opening to the worldβ€”the interplay of power in an era of aged and ailing leadership, the people's rebellion against the earlier government system, and the roles of unlikely characters: overseas Chinese capitalists, American engineers, Japanese professors, and German designers. This is a story of revolutionary change that neither foreigners nor the Chinese themselves could have predicted.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780300267082

Publisher: Yale University Press

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 24 September 2024

Country: United States

Imprint: Yale University Press

Illustration: 16 b-w illus.

Audience: Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Width: 156.0mm

Height: 235.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 424

About the Author

Odd Arne Westad is the Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University. His books include The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times, winner of the Bancroft Prize, and Restless Empire: China and the World since 1750. He lives in New Haven, CT. Chen Jian is Distinguished Global Network Professor of History at NYU and NYU Shanghai and Hu Shih Professor of History Emeritus at Cornell University. His books include China’s Road to the Korean War, Mao’s China and the Cold War, and Zhou Enlai: A Life. He lives in Ithaca, NY.

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