ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in subsequent chapters of the book, and focuses on how Mao-era China coped with disasters. Studying Maoist disaster management, shows how responding to disasters did not necessarily gain any priority in political decision-making. During the Mao-era, the decisions to engage in active disaster management campaigns were always based on political and economic calculations. Throughout Chinese history, disasters have been managed in order to prevent them, mitigate their impacts and rebuild after them, sometimes skilfully, sometimes less so. The book is about how this work was done in Tianjin city in the Great Leap Forward famine, the great flood of 1963 and the great Tangshan earthquake in 1976. The sources used in the book fall into three categories: the archival materials from the Tianjin City Archive (TCA); the internal (neibu), publications; and open contemporary sources, especially the gazetteers of different administrative sections and units of the city.
