ABSTRACT
Frank Dikotter, the author of Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, is a well-known scholar of Chinese history who has written ten books and speaks six languages. His early work tended to focus on difficult topics such as drugs, crime, sex, race, and marginalized populations in China. He is best known as a critic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the party ruling the nation since 1949, writing a trilogy of histories that cast an unflattering light on the party's early years. He examines in extraordinary detail the famine caused by the Great Leap Forward of 1958 to 1961—the CCP's campaign to jumpstart Chinese industry—showing it to be perhaps the greatest man-made catastrophe in human history. The People's Republic of China is one of the most important political, strategic, and economic players in the world. It may be the world's next superpower. Yet it is still governed by the CCP.
