- 657 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
A veteran journalist presents "an epic account of the worst famine in history . . . a landmark in the Chinese people's own efforts to confront their history" (Ian Johnson,
The New York Review of Books).
An estimated thirty-six million Chinese men, women, and children starved to death during China's Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and early '60s. One of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century, the famine is poorly understood, and in China is still euphemistically referred to as "the three years of natural disaster."
As a journalist with privileged access to official and unofficial sources, Yang Jisheng spent twenty years piecing together the events that led to mass nationwide starvation, including the death of his own father. Finding no natural causes, Yang attributes responsibility for the deaths to China's totalitarian system and the refusal of officials at every level to value human life over ideology and self-interest.
Tombstone is a testament to inhumanity and occasional heroism that pits collective memory against the historical amnesia imposed by those in power. Stunning in scale and arresting in its detailed account of the staggering human cost of this tragedy, Tombstone is written both as a memorial to the lives lost—an enduring tombstone in memory of the dead—and in hopeful anticipation of the final demise of the totalitarian system.
An estimated thirty-six million Chinese men, women, and children starved to death during China's Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and early '60s. One of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century, the famine is poorly understood, and in China is still euphemistically referred to as "the three years of natural disaster."
As a journalist with privileged access to official and unofficial sources, Yang Jisheng spent twenty years piecing together the events that led to mass nationwide starvation, including the death of his own father. Finding no natural causes, Yang attributes responsibility for the deaths to China's totalitarian system and the refusal of officials at every level to value human life over ideology and self-interest.
Tombstone is a testament to inhumanity and occasional heroism that pits collective memory against the historical amnesia imposed by those in power. Stunning in scale and arresting in its detailed account of the staggering human cost of this tragedy, Tombstone is written both as a memorial to the lives lost—an enduring tombstone in memory of the dead—and in hopeful anticipation of the final demise of the totalitarian system.
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Yes, you can access Tombstone by Yang Jisheng in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Chinese History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Contents
- Map
- Introduction by Edward Friedman and Roderick MacFarquhar
- Translators’ Note
- A Chronology of the Great Famine
- An Everlasting Tombstone
- 1. The Epicenter of the Disaster
- 2. The Three Red Banners: Source of the Famine
- 3. Hard Times in Gansu
- 4. The People’s Commune: Foundation of the Totalitarian System
- 5. The Communal Kitchens
- 6. Hungry Ghosts in Heaven’s Pantry
- 7. The Ravages of the Five Winds
- 8. Anxious in Anhui
- 9. The Food Crisis
- 10. Turnaround in Lushan
- 11. China’s Population Loss in the Great Leap Forward
- 12. The Official Response to the Crisis
- 13. Social Stability During the Great Famine
- 14. The Systemic Causes of the Great Famine
- 15. The Great Famine’s Impact on Chinese Politics
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Copyright