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History China

Eating Bitterness

New Perspectives on China's Great Leap Forward and Famine

edited by Kimberley Ens Manning & Felix Wemheuer

Publisher
UBC Press
Initial publish date
Feb 2011
Category
China, 20th Century
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780774817264
    Publish Date
    Feb 2011
    List Price
    $95.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780774817271
    Publish Date
    Mar 2012
    List Price
    $34.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780774817288
    Publish Date
    Jan 2011
    List Price
    $125.00

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Description

When the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949, Mao Zedong declared that “not even one person shall die of hunger.” Yet some 30 million peasants died of starvation and exhaustion during the Great Leap Forward. Eating Bitterness reveals how men and women in rural and urban settings, from the provincial level to the grassroots, experienced the changes brought on by the party leaders’ attempts to modernize China. This landmark volume lifts the curtain of party propaganda to expose the suffering of citizens and the deeply contested nature of state-society relations in Maoist China.

About the authors

Contributor Notes

Kimberley Ens Manning is an associate professor of political science at Concordia University. Felix Wemheuer is an assistant professor in the Department for East Asian Studies at the University of Vienna.

 

Contributors: Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik, Richard King, Xin Yi, Wang Yanni, Gao Hua, Yixin Chen, Jeremy Brown, Ralph A. Thaxton Jr., and Wangling Gao

Editorial Reviews

An important collection that contributes both new perspectives and rich data. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the Great Leap Famine and the early years of the PRC.

The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol 71, Issue 2