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The Great Transformation

China’s Road from Revolution to Reform

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THE FIRST THOROUGH ACCOUNT OF A FORMATIVE AND LITTLE UNDERSTOOD CHAPTER IN CHINESE HISTORY

Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian chronicle how an impoverished and terrorized 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 world—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.

©2024 Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian (P)2024 Recorded Books
20th Century Asia China Economic History Economics Modern Socialism Imperialism Russia Soviet Union Imperial Japan Leadership Military War Capitalism

Critic reviews

“Westad and Chen have written a masterful account of China’s modernization that illuminates the path it took to emerge as America’s only true peer competitor.”—Graham Allison, author of Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?

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Most relevant
fascinating period of Chinese history expertly told especially insightful when considering recent developments under Xi

fascinating period expertly told

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