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kaizenagility's review
5.0
My first time listening through this dense audiobook, and I will have to go back many more times. Intricately researched - the stories are unfathomably horrific: mass starvation, torture, brutal collectivization, labor camps, senseless egomaniacal projects, senseless deaths. Communism’s follies and deceits in China. Tragic atrocities that have yet to find reckoning, accountability, and healing. This is the China of my parents’ childhoods, and I want to understand their trauma. These accounts are overwhelming.
hector1965's review
5.0
Utterly gripping, lucid narrative history, about a period we don't hear much about as it's overshadowed the Cultural Revolution that followed. The author doesn't provide too much commentary (I enjoy that too when done well), the events and characters speak for themselves.
cayleejanet's review against another edition
i saw someone else say that this is like a reply to other more general narratives about the chinese revolution, and i agree in that it feels like this is all the detail without the overarching story. i think id like to come back to this after reading a broader history of maos china as then ill be able to know more broadly what’s going on whilst reading the finer points