The Origins of the Cultural Revolution : Contradictions among the People, 1956-1957 (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University)

Why did Mao Zedong launch the cultural revolution that almost destroyed all that he had worked so long and so hard to create? In his highly praised study-now a classic-Roderick MacFarquhar seeks to answer that question by examining the politics, economics, culture, and international relations of China from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s.