Mao's China and After: A History of the People's Republic, Third Edition

Maurice Meisner, one of the US' foremost Sinologists, did an excellent job writing a popular history of the People's Republic in "Mao's China and After". Starting with the fall of the Empire and the May Fourth movement as well as New Culture, Meisner then skips to the point where the Chinese Communists have won the Civil War. He discusses the Maoist, Liuist, Dengist etc. periods in Chinese history in depth, taking a very large-scale view concentrating in particular on economic and social history, with some commentary on the position of intellectuals thrown in (in particular with the Hundred Flowers movement and the Cultural Revolution). Meisner gives a solid left-wing perspective on all the relevant issues, focusing in particular on the successes and failures both of Mao's view of socialism, which, as Meisner points out, was itself on the left wing of the Communist Party of China. As some reviewers have noted, at times this does a disservice to his eagle's view of things, as a lot of social history in which Mao plays only a tangential role is ignored: there is no part on the position of women and changes in this, no description of the Civil War itself at all, practically nothing on the war against Japan, and even the Great Leap Forward gets only a summary description. On the other hand, this allows him to focus very strongly on the relation between economic policy and economic structures on the one hand, and the roles and views of the leaders of the Party on the other hand, surely an essential but often missing element of any serious political history. The book is eminently readable and requires absolutely zero prior knowledge of modern China, and at the same time, after finishing it, a reader will have at least a moderate level of knowledge on modern Chinese political history. This is quite an accomplishment, made possible by Meisner's talent to make complicated political entanglements seem straightforward and obvious, and his constant eye on the economic side of things. There are a lot of things that one could criticize this book on, but since it is meant as a popular introduction, it should be judged on those criteria, and there it succeeds quite well.

This is THE book to read for those looking for a one-volume overview of China since the revolution. Meisner presents a clear, cogent, thorough, and sympathetic but not dogmatic overview of Communist China and Mao's struggles to wrest China away from the road to bureacratic capitalism. He presents the failures of Chinese Communism as well as its successes, and is equally at ease with economic, intellectual, political, and social history. For those looking for a history of the Chinese Revolution itself, I recommend Lucien Bianco's "Origins of the Chinese Revolution". For a great eyewitness account of the struggles of the Red Army in the 1930s, see Edgar Snow's "Red Star Over China". For a masterful depiction of the struggles for socialism at the level of a single village, see William Hinton's "Fanshen" and it's sequel "Shenfan".

Maurice Meisner got on my good side in the introduction to this, the third edition of his history of the People's Republic of China: He admitted and set about correcting errors in earlier editions - specifically, his previous, erroneous view that China's economic opening was a political expedient, not a genuine and astounding policy shift. How often do you come across an author -- or anyone! - admitting he was wrong? So I read on, confident I was in the company of an honest analyst. My rising expectations were rewarded. Meisner's analysis is fair-minded and authoritative. I've read a good bit of modern Chinese history, but almost every page of this book delivered a new insight or deepened my understanding of what I already knew. Among the things that struck me: the extent to which the Chinese revolution originally was a rural phenomenon and the consequences of those origins; how successful the communists were in establishing order and a functioning government in the early years after their victory; the fact that much of the violence of the Cultural Revolution was started not by starry-eyed Maoist zealots but by entrenched bureaucrats diverting attention away from themselves and toward helpless intellectuals and people with "bad class backgrounds.'' The book is sometimes repetitious; Meisner drives home his themes again and again. And I found myself a little frustrated at times by what I took as Meisner's Utopian socialist outlook. He seems sympathetic to the idea that pure socialism - worker ownership of the means of production - would have created some kind of perfect, democratic society in China. Sometimes he measures the success of Mao and his successors not by how well they improved the lot of the people but by how well they moved China along the Marx-ordained path to socialism and on to communism. He sometimes seemed to bend over backwards to explain or minimize Mao's excesses and to expose the dark side of what he calls China's shift to capitalism. He seems to view the words "hire" and "exploit" as synonyms. More importantly, I think his apparent black-white view of socialism vs. capitalism leads him to simplify the economic changes in China; in my view, the country hasn't gone completely capitalist (though it's certainly headed that way) but is caught somewhere between the socialist and capitalist worlds - in some ways adopting the worst of both. Even so, Meisner's vision is easily broad and humane enough to compensate for what I saw as a pro-socialist tilt. My objections are actually less complaints than responses to Meisner's provocative analysis. Bottom line: Any serious student of communist China should own this book.

I am very glad I read this book (which Howard Zinn recommended to me). I feel I have a firm grasp of the basics of 20th Century Chinese history now. Meisner really takes an independent line: he doesn't just parrot Chinese or US propaganda. I feel he makes reasonable surmises about motivations and actions which are still unclear, given the secretive nature of the Chinese government. In all, one of the best history books I have ever read.

As a whole, this an excellent text. Meisner exhibits an incredible knowledge and understanding of the tragic history of the PRC. As he takes the reader on an incredible exploration of the PRC's many vicissitudes,Meisner, despite being a historian by trade, consistenly gives the reader masterful economic and political analysis of the events that swept the "Middle Kingdom" during this last half-century. In addition to this, he dissects with precision the manifold conceptual arguments, theoretical polemics, and numerous speeches Mao offered to the people as to how and why these incredible changes could and should occur. Upon completion of it, I am definitely better versed on the myriad events that have shaped today's PRC. From China's revolutionary heritage all the way up to the rise of Deng, Meisner is consistently clear and captivating. His masterful use of economic, political, sociological, and historical analysis is impressive. He also demonstrates quite a knowledge of Marxist-Leninism and Maoism. However, at times I felt bogged down by it all, and honestly had to wonder how germane it truly is to the events that transpired. Yet, as a whole, I still have to conclude that this book is excellent and should be considered on of the key books for someone investigating contemporary China.