Best books on cultural revolution

F ifty years ago this year, Mao Zedong issued the directive that launched the Cultural Revolution. By the time Mao died, just over a decade later, his final, extended purge had torn Chinese government and society apart. Public memory of these events remains fractured in China today. Leading novelists — Mo Yan , Tie Ning, Yan Lianke , Yu Hua — stress the sufferings of victims: the ordinary people persecuted by ideologues, opportunists and mindless thugs. Born-again neo-Maoists — many of them too young to remember the Mao era in any meaningful way — celebrate the Cultural Revolution as a utopian experiment in mass democracy. But reticence, above all, is the keynote of Cultural Revolution commemoration in contemporary China.

China is very much in the news these days, but it can be difficult to tell how we got here. The Cultural Revolution was Mao's last hurrah and the backlash led to China's economic miracle. The reaction also led to the reforms that precipitated the Tienamen Square protests, to which President Xi Jinping's consolidation of power and renewed repression of dissidents is also a reaction. While I am explaining things, let me tell you that contrary to Chinese tradition, I am listing the family names of the authors in this post last, as we have them in the library. These books are all about life during the Cultural Revolution: not the movers and shakers, but the overwhelming majority, mostly in small cities and villages.