the history of China's most devastating catastrophe, 1958-1962
Between 1958 and 1962, Mao Zedong threw China into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up with, and overtake, Britain economically, and in many other ways, in less than fifteen years. The experiment ended in the greatest catastrophe the country had ever known with the deaths of at least 45 million people. This is the chronicle of an era in Chinese history much speculated about but never before fully documented. Before more recent open laws were passed, access to Communist Party archives had been restricted to all but the most trusted historians. This account recasts the history of the People's Republic of China.
