Ezra's Bookshelf

Mao's Last Revolution

by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals · 764 pages · ~14 hrs

HistoryPolitics & Government

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Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals provide the definitive account of China's Cultural Revolution, the decade-long upheaval that Mao Zedong launched in 1966 to renew revolutionary fervor and destroy his enemies. Drawing on previously unavailable documents from Chinese archives, party histories, and memoirs, the authors reveal Mao's calculating orchestration of chaos. They show how he mobilized millions of young Red Guards to attack the party establishment, then turned against the Red Guards themselves when their violence threatened order. The book traces the factional struggles, the persecution of intellectuals and officials, the destruction of cultural artifacts, and the human cost measured in millions of lives. MacFarquhar, who began studying the Cultural Revolution decades earlier, brings unmatched scholarly depth, while Schoenhals contributes expertise in Chinese documentary sources. Together they explain not just what happened but why—Mao's revolutionary ideology, his fears of Soviet-style revisionism, his suspicion of subordinates, and his belief that continuous struggle was necessary to prevent revolution's betrayal. For understanding modern China, this history is essential: the Cultural Revolution's trauma shaped the subsequent reform era and continues to influence Chinese politics and society.

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