The Cultural Revolution Audiobook by Frank Dikötter

https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/audiobook/38/ to download full audiobooks of your choice for free. Title: The Cultural Revolution Subtitle: A Peoples History, 1962-1976 Author: Frank Dikötter Narrator: Paul Costanzo Format: Unabridged Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins Language: English Release date: 11-08-16 Publisher: Tantor Audio Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 46 votes Genres: History, 20th Century Publisher's Summary: After the economic disaster of the Great Leap Forward that claimed tens of millions of lives from 1958-1962, an aging Mao Zedong launched an ambitious scheme to shore up his reputation and eliminate those he viewed as a threat to his legacy. The stated goal of the Cultural Revolution was to purge the country of bourgeois, capitalistic elements he claimed were threatening genuine communist ideology. Young students formed the Red Guards, vowing to defend the Chairman to the death, but soon rival factions started fighting each other in the streets with semiautomatic weapons in the name of revolutionary purity. As the country descended into chaos, the military intervened, turning China into a garrison state marked by bloody purges that crushed as many as one in 50 people. The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976 draws for the first time on hundreds of previously classified party documents, from secret police reports to unexpurgated versions of leadership speeches. Frank Dikötter uses this wealth of material to undermine the picture of complete conformity that is often supposed to have characterized the last years of the Mao era. Critic Reviews: "A fine, sharp study of this tumultuous, elusive era...[An] excellent follow-up to his groundbreaking previous work...Dikötter tells a harrowing tale of unbelievable suffering. A potent combination of precise history and moving examples." (Kirkus)