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DENG XIAOPING AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF CHINA
By: Ezra F. Vogel
Harvard University Press
October 2011
On Sale: September 26, 2011
928 pages
ISBN: 0674055446
EAN: 9780674055445
Kindle: B0064EHZY0
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Biography
Perhaps no one in the twentieth century had a greater long-term impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping. And no scholar of contemporary East Asian history and culture is better qualified than Ezra Vogel to disentangle the many contradictions embodied in the life and legacy of Chinaβs boldest strategist. Once described by Mao Zedong as a βneedle inside a ball of cotton,β Deng was the pragmatic yet disciplined driving force behind Chinaβs radical transformation in the late twentieth century. He confronted the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, dissolved Maoβs cult of personality, and loosened the economic and social policies that had stunted Chinaβs growth. Obsessed with modernization and technology, Deng opened trade relations with the West that lifted hundreds of millions of his countrymen out of poverty. Yet at the same time he answered to his authoritarian roots, most notably when he ordered the crackdown in June 1989 at Tiananmen Square. Dengβs youthful commitment to the Communist Party was cemented in Paris in the early 1920s, among a group of Chinese student-workers that also included Zhou Enlai. Deng returned home in 1927 to join the Chinese Revolution on the ground floor. In the fifty years of his tumultuous rise to power, he endured accusations, purges, and even exile before becoming Chinaβs preeminent leader from 1978 to 1989 and again in 1992. When he reached the top, Deng saw an opportunity to creatively destroy much of the economic system he had helped build for five decades as a loyal follower of Maoβand he did not hesitate.
 Media BuzzOn Point - September 14, 2011
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