I just got this book today, just opened the package a few minutes ago. When I pre-ordered it some months back I wrote here that I laughed out loud when I saw the title. Professor Dikotter pulls no punches. This is the first work of serious scholarship that has ever taken on the very founding mythology of the People's Republic, which others cling to as the drowning clutch at reeds. Long-time readers will recall the series "Red Legacy in China" here, a month-long daily counterpoint to the seminar of the same name at Harvard a few years ago. Professor Elizabeth J. Perry, one of the organizers of "Red Legacy" was intent on "reclaiming the Chinese revolution," that is the ideals of the founding mythology. This is what Dikotter says about the legacy in the opening two sentences of his preface:
"The Chinese Communist Party refers to its victory in 1949 as a 'liberation.' The term brings to mind jubilant crowds taking to the streets to celebrate their newly won freedom, but in China the story of liberation and the revolution that followed is not one of peace, liberty and justice. It is first and foremost a history of calculated terror and systematic violence."
That is the red legacy in China. Frank Dikotter is an intrepid, meticulous scholar and "Liberation" is a shot into the boiler room of Perry's reclamation vessel.
"The Chinese Communist Party refers to its victory in 1949 as a 'liberation.' The term brings to mind jubilant crowds taking to the streets to celebrate their newly won freedom, but in China the story of liberation and the revolution that followed is not one of peace, liberty and justice. It is first and foremost a history of calculated terror and systematic violence."
That is the red legacy in China. Frank Dikotter is an intrepid, meticulous scholar and "Liberation" is a shot into the boiler room of Perry's reclamation vessel.
