The Cultural Revolution: Diary of a visit to Mao’s China 1975

Description

The late 1960s were years of ideological and political upheaval for Mao’s China; even into the next decade, the country was largely off limits. When a group of teachers from England arrived there in 1975 on a study tour, they were just in time to witness an extraordinary episode, shortly to end, in which the whole population was charged with ‘cultural revolution’. What was China like, then? What was it like to visit China, then? Gardner Thompson, a student of politics and teacher of history, kept a record and took photographs. His illustrated diary captures an improbably strange world: one in which each thought, word and deed was political; and communist history was being made. 40 years on, the Communist Party remains in sole power; otherwise, China has been transformed. This diary recalls in detail the almost unrecognisable China from which today’s global economic power has so suddenly emerged.