Download China's Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians and Provincial Leaders in the Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B
China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B. Join with us to be participant here. This is the internet site that will give you reduce of looking book China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B to check out. This is not as the various other website; guides will be in the kinds of soft documents. What benefits of you to be member of this website? Obtain hundred compilations of book connect to download and get always updated book daily. As one of the books we will present to you now is the China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B that includes an extremely pleased principle.
China's Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians and Provincial Leaders in the Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B
Download China's Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians and Provincial Leaders in the Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B
How a suggestion can be got? By looking at the stars? By seeing the sea as well as checking out the sea interweaves? Or by reviewing a book China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B Everybody will certainly have particular unique to acquire the inspiration. For you which are dying of publications and consistently obtain the inspirations from books, it is actually fantastic to be below. We will show you hundreds collections of the book China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B to review. If you such as this China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B, you can additionally take it as your own.
As one of the book compilations to recommend, this China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B has some solid reasons for you to review. This publication is very ideal with exactly what you require currently. Besides, you will also like this book China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B to check out because this is among your referred publications to check out. When getting something brand-new based upon encounter, entertainment, and other lesson, you could use this publication China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B as the bridge. Beginning to have reading habit can be gone through from various means as well as from variant sorts of books
In reading China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B, now you might not also do conventionally. In this contemporary age, device and computer system will certainly aid you a lot. This is the time for you to open the device and remain in this website. It is the appropriate doing. You could see the link to download this China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B here, can not you? Merely click the link and also make a deal to download it. You can get to buy the book China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B by on-line and prepared to download. It is very different with the standard way by gong to guide shop around your city.
However, checking out the book China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B in this website will lead you not to bring the printed publication almost everywhere you go. Just save the book in MMC or computer disk and also they are available to review any time. The prosperous heating and cooling unit by reading this soft documents of the China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B can be introduced something brand-new routine. So now, this is time to show if reading could boost your life or not. Make China's Road To Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians And Provincial Leaders In The Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B it definitely function and also obtain all benefits.
This text analyzes the dramatic shifts in Chinese Communist Party economic policy during the mid to late 1950s which eventually resulted in 30 to 45 million deaths through starvation as a result of the failed policies of the Great Leap Forward. Teiwes examines both the substance and the process of economic policy-making in that period, explaining how the rational policies of opposing rash advance in 1956-57 gave way to the fanciful policies of the Great Leap, and assessing responsibility for the failure to adjust adequately those policies even as signs of disaster began to reach higher level decision makers. In telling this story, Teiwes focuses on key participants in the process throughout both "rational" and "utopian" phases - Mao, other top leaders, central economic bureaucracies and local party leaders. The analysis rejects both of the existing influential explanations in the field, the long dominant power politics approach focusing on alleged clashes within the top leadership, and David Bachman's recent institutional interpretation of the origins of the Great Leap. Instead, this study presents a detailed picture of an exceptionally Mao-dominated process, where no other actor challenged his position, where the boldest step any actor took was to try and influence his preferences, and where the system in effect became paralyzed while Mao kept changing signals as disaster unfolded.
- Sales Rank: #3836847 in Books
- Brand: Brand: M E Sharpe Inc
- Published on: 1998-10-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .77" w x 6.00" l, 1.12 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 376 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
From Library Journal
Two authorities on Chinese Communist politics and economics (The Tragedy of Lin Biao, Univ. of Hawaii, 1996) present challenging new explanations for the failures of the Great Leap Forward using original Chinese sources and official papers. Jasper Becker's Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine (LJ 1/97) graphically depicted Mao's failures and the horrifying effects of a famine that killed 30 to 45 million people. Teiwes and Sun focus on the first steps along the road to disaster, analyzing Communist party leadership and politics from the late 1950s on, including Mao's shifting and sometimes ambiguous viewpoints, the role of Soviet communism, local political appeals, utopian delusions, and the failure of high Communist officials to curb Mao's flawed plans. An appendix of Chinese primary source material, an extensive bibliography, and a chronology complement this important text. Highly recommended for academic and large public libraries.?Margaret W. Norton, IMH High Sch., Westchester, IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A Good Summation of the Horror of The Great Leap Forward
By A reader
The insanity of Mao Tse-Tung and the rest of his political leadership is laid bare by this book. In it, we read of a fanatical despot, jealous and fearful of the west, suspicious of his erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union, who was determined, whatever the cost, to increase his country's power and influence and to do so in the shortest possible time. He even had a name for his ambitious new program. He would call it 'The Great Leap Forward' and it would accomplish in only a few short years what the capitalist west took decades, even centuries to accomplish previously.
Intoxicated, as Mao was, by abstract ideology and completely out of touch with conditions and possibilities as they existed in the China in the late 1950's, he proceeded to coerce party and government faithful to accept his vision of a China that would very soon be able to compete economically and even militarily with the likes of Britain, the Soviet Union and, eventually, the United States. Never squeamish about sacrificing human life in pursuit of his own power and glory, Mao explained that all they need do was further regiment both peasantry and proletariat, dictate to them a set of arbitrary economic goals that, for the most part, had no relation whatsoever to reality and then use the whip, the stick and the shot in the back of the neck to ensure their fulfillment. Not to be outdone, his assorted leadership cadres, whether out of sheer fanaticism or, perhaps more likely, pure, naked fear, took Mao's insatiable demands and began to ratchet them even higher as they attempted to outdo each other in their zeal to please their master.
As a major part of the plan, grain quotas were revised upwards to completely unrealistic heights despite the fact that no practical means existed to fulfill them. This, in turn, prompted Mao to demand ever more grain to sell abroad in return for much needed hard currency. Of course, such a mad policy, the very same pursued by Stalin some twenty-five years earlier, soon resulted in widespread food shortages as production simply failed to keep up with export demand. This, coupled with another insane idea of Mao's - that peasants would also be recruited to increase steel production by utilizing makeshift, 'backyard' furnaces to melt whatever steel happened to be at hand - pots, pans, farm implements, tools - served only to further inhibit the countryside from producing sufficient food.
After several convulsive years, as the number of deaths through starvation, disease, torture and outright extermination soared into the millions, it soon became obvious that Mao's 'Great Leap' had managed perhaps one significant accomplishment. It had reduced China to shambles. The countryside was in famine, dead and dying littered villages and towns and the vast majority of the steel produced by these 'backyard furnaces' was virtually useless and left peasants critically short of farm implements and tools. Even the Chairman himself began to realize the extent of the disaster he was largely responsible for creating. As yet unmoved by the human cost - conservatively estimated at ten to twenty million lives - his real fear was for his own position, so evident was the sheer ineptitude of his leadership. He called a halt to what was supposed to be his nation's greatest achievement but only after terrible cost to the Chinese people and their economy.
As a result and just as he had feared, Mao did suffer some diminution of his power and prestige but, being the ruthless and callous psychopath that he was, he remained determined to restore his position regardless of cost, which he did by again throwing his country into yet another mad adventure, the so called 'Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution'. Initiated in 1965 and in a country still reeling from the disaster of the 'Great Leap Forward', it plunged China into almost complete anarchy and did not really abate until the Chairman's own death, by natural causes, in 1976.
As Chinese society continued to liberalize in the 1990's and beyond, more and more of the actual historical record of this murderous era continued to come to light. If anything, these new revelations show this book to have, if anything, underestimated the bloody impact of Mao Tse-Tung and his demented policies.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Revisionism in the Best Sense of the Word
By Andrew C. Mertha
The other review (above) makes no sense. Either you deify Mao, or you hold him solely responsible for the Great Leap Forward disaster. Moreover, it represents a poor understanding of the book it is reviewing, as Teiwes and Sun do not make either claim. Rather, this book fits into their revisionist (in the best sense of the term) framework in arguing that Mao did not achieve greater power in the 1960s, but rather held at least the same degree of authority (and arguably even more) but decided that democratic centralism was the best way to discuss and implement policy while maintaining Mao's own power. This, as many know, ended in 1959, at the Lushan Meeting. Teiwes and Sun argue that things went the way they did because that is how Mao wanted them to be (of course, in doing so, Mao unleashed, and animated, forces that were ultimately beyond even his control, and which made a stupid policy a devastating one). You might say that this is the same as saying that "it is all Mao's fault." But such a statement makes for a bumper sticker, and does not reflect a carefully grounded reading of this scholarly work. And, granted, Teiwes and Sun make a nonfalsifiable argument, so we have to evaluate Teiwes and Sun on their research, which is extraordinarily meticulous, thoughtfully interpreted, and stimulating (even when wrong). There are other attempts to try to make sense of the GLF (Domenach, Yang, Bachman). This is as good as the best of them (i.e., MacFarquhar).
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Deification of Mao
By Larry Yeo
This book represents a credible attempt to add new perspectives (in many cases revolutionary ones) to a significant era in the Chinese political, military, and social landscape.
In my opinion, it fundamentally flawed in that the foundation of the entire work is the fervently-held premise that Mao was omnipotent during this relevant period. In attributing God-like qualities to this one mortal politician/demagogue, Dr. Teiwes and Dr. Sun create the universe of possible conclusions in advance of the critical analyses. Therefore, a tragedy of incredible magnitude (starvation of +35 million Chinese) is attributed not to a convergence of critical events (including environmental, political, and social) but instead to the actions or inactions of one man. Dr. Teiwes is known as a strong proponent of Mao-centrist philosophy so it is understandable that he holds Mao in this true sense of filial piety. Mao truly would be proud.
I think that this book has some value to the scholar of Chinese history and the legions of Mao proponents worldwide.
China's Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians and Provincial Leaders in the Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B PDF
China's Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians and Provincial Leaders in the Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B EPub
China's Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians and Provincial Leaders in the Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B Doc
China's Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians and Provincial Leaders in the Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B iBooks
China's Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians and Provincial Leaders in the Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B rtf
China's Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians and Provincial Leaders in the Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B Mobipocket
China's Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians and Provincial Leaders in the Great Leap Forward, 1955-59 (Contemporary China Books)B Kindle
