Bombard the Headquarters!
Linda Jaivin
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From the publisher
Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1966 to purge his critics and blood a new generation of fighters. Ten years later, almost two million people had been killed and much of China’s heritage, from precious manuscripts to ancient temples, had been obliterated.
The shadow of these terrible years lies heavily over the twenty-first-century nation. The history of this period is so toxic that China’s rulers have gone to great lengths to bury it – while a few brave men and women risk their freedom to uncover the truth. For as both they and the Party know, to grasp the history of the Cultural Revolution is to understand much about China today.
Bombard the Headquarters! is not just Mao’s story. It’s the unforgettable stories of countless individuals, mass manias, of sacred mangos, and spectacular falls from grace. At once rigorous and readable, brief yet teeming with colourful detail, this is a marvel of historical storytelling.
'Excellent: a powerful account of a truly extraordinary period in recent Chinese history, surefooted and perceptive, enlivened by a wealth of vignettes and anecdotes which bring to life the dramatic and frequently horrific events that have played a seminal role in forming Chinese society as it exists today’
—Philip Short, author of Mao: A Life
'Deftly narrated in precise, pellucid prose, Jaivin wears her meticulous research lightly to provide a lively and essential reading on the maddeningly complex politics of the Cultural Revolution. With insightful commentary and vivid sketches of some of its operatic protagonists, this brilliant short history is a great start for anyone who wants to understand a central decade in the Maoist epoch whose catastrophic legacy endures to this day. A tour de force'
—Jianying Zha, author of Tide Players and China Pop
'A beautifully concise account that makes sense of a hugely complex event in modern Chinese history. Linda Jaivin puts her formidable, deep experience both of Chinese history and language to excellent use, conveying in 100 pages what most would struggle to achieve in a thousand.'
—Professor Kerry Brown