Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China

Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China
by Philip P. Pan

Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China
List Price: $28.00
Category: Book
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Book Summary Information

Author: Philip P. Pan
Edition: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2008-06-17
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Book Reviews of Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China

Book Review: China's economic growth under Communism
Summary: 5 Stars

Pan's is the first book I have found answering the question, "How has China achieved such dramatic economic growth under Communism?" This question intrigued me because Russia's and Cuba's economic history suggested that Communism would always be an economic failure. After reading several books discussing some of China's economic contributors (e.g., The Elephant and the Dragon (comparing India and China), Factory Girls (the story of China's 130 million migrant workers), China, Inc. (the dramatic account of China's growing industrial dominance)), I understood some of what was going on in the Chinese economy, but I still didn't have the answer to my question. Phil Pan gave me the answer.

Summary of Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China

From an award-winning journalist for The Washington Post and one of the leading China correspondents of his generation comes an eloquent and vivid chronicle of the world's most successful authoritarian state -- a nation undergoing a remarkable transformation.

Philip P. Pan's groundbreaking book takes us inside the dramatic battle for China's soul and into the lives of individuals struggling to come to terms with their nation's past -- the turmoil and trauma of Mao's rule -- and to take control of its future. Capitalism has brought prosperity and global respect to China, but the Communist government continues to resist the demands of its people for political freedom.

Pan, who reported in China for the Post for seven years and speaks fluent Chinese, eluded the police and succeeded in going where few Western journalists have dared.

From the rusting factories in the industrial northeast to a tabloid newsroom in the booming south, from a small-town courtroom to the plush offices of the nation's wealthiest tycoons, he tells the gripping stories of ordinary men and women fighting for political change. An elderly surgeon exposes the government's cover-up of the SARS epidemic. A filmmaker investigates the execution of a young woman during the Cultural Revolution. A blind man is jailed for leading a crusade against forced abortions carried out under the one-child policy.

The young people who filled Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989 saw their hopes for a democratic China crushed in a massacre, but Pan reveals that as older, more pragmatic adults, many continue to push for justice in different ways. They are survivors whose families endured one of the world's deadliest famines during the Great Leap Forward, whose idealism was exploited during the madness of the Cultural Revolution, and whose values have been tested by the booming economy and the rush to get rich.

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