'A revolutionary book' Sunday Times 'A pulsating account' Peter Frankopan *A SPECTATOR AND
NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR* How did the People's Republic of China transform from a
backwater economy in the 1970s into the world superpower of today? Drawing on hundreds of
previously unseen archival documents award-winning historian Frank Dikötter recasts our
understanding of an era that both the regime and foreign admirers alike celebrate as an
economic miracle. In a fascinating tale spanning five decades he examines the country's
economic transformation alongside the regime's determined suppression of dissent its
increasing hostility towards the West and its development into a thoroughly entrenched
dictatorship led by Xi Jinping - one equipped with a sprawling security apparatus and the most
sophisticated surveillance system in the world. 'Essential reading for anyone who wants to
know what has shaped today's China and what the Chinese Communist Party's choices mean for the
rest of the world' New Statesman 'A blow-by-blow account of the uneven reactive and
sometimes chaotic course of economic policies . . . An important corrective' Financial Times
'Dikötter has been mining Chinese primary sources for decades . . . A clear-eyed and detailed
account' Observer
