Tombstone : The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jisheng, Yang.

Contributor:

Friedman, Edward, Author of introduction, etc., Editor.

MacFarquhar, Roderick, 1930-2019, Author of introduction, etc.

Mosher, Stacy, Translator, Editor.

Jian, Guo, Translator, Editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Famines--China.

Famines.

Totalitarianism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (656 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Tombstone

Place of Publication:

New York : Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012.

Summary:

The much-anticipated definitive account of China's Great FamineAn estimated thirty-six million Chinese men, women, and children starved to death during China's Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and early '60s. One of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century, the famine is poorly understood, and in China is still euphemistically referred to as "the three years of natural disaster."As a journalist with privileged access to official and unofficial sources, Yang Jisheng spent twenty years piecing together the events that led to mass nationwide starvation, including the death of his own father. Finding no natural causes, Yang attributes responsibility for the deaths to China's totalitarian system and the refusal of officials at every level to value human life over ideology and self-interest.Tombstone is a testament to inhumanity and occasional heroism that pits collective memory against the historical amnesia imposed by those in power. Stunning in scale and arresting in its detailed account of the staggering human cost of this tragedy, Tombstone is written both as a memorial to the lives lost an enduring tombstone in memory of the dead and in hopeful anticipation of the final demise of the totalitarian system. Ian Johnson, writing in The New York Review of Books, called the Chinese edition of Tombstone "groundbreaking . . . One of the most important books to come out of China in recent years.""

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Contents

Map

Introduction by Edward Friedman and Roderick MacFarquhar

Translators’ Note

A Chronology of the Great Famine

An Everlasting Tombstone

1. The Epicenter of the Disaster

2. The Three Red Banners: Source of the Famine

3. Hard Times in Gansu

4. The People’s Commune: Foundation of the Totalitarian System

5. The Communal Kitchens

6. Hungry Ghosts in Heaven’s Pantry

7. The Ravages of the Five Winds

8. Anxious in Anhui

9. The Food Crisis

10. Turnaround in Lushan

11. China’s Population Loss in the Great Leap Forward

12. The Official Response to the Crisis

13. Social Stability During the Great Famine

14. The Systemic Causes of the Great Famine

15. The Great Famine’s Impact on Chinese Politics

Notes

Bibliography

Index

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Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

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ISBN:

9781466827790

1466827793

OCLC:

1429724314