Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikotter (Bloomsbury) *****
This is not a book for the faint-hearted.
Frank Dikotter who shares his time between teaching and researching at the University of Hong Kong and SOAS has become our leading historian and chronicler on all things Chinese. This is his eighth book on the subject.
It comes just as if there seems to be another seismic change in Chinese politics as Xi Jinping is being groomed for the leadership according to articles in yesterday's FT and today's The Sunday Times. Xi Jinping may be the first Chinese leader to right Mao's wrongs. We shall see.
Whatever, Dikotter's book does it for Jinping and if there's one chapter where you might struggle to want to read on, it is in Chapter 36 entitled Cannibalism. It explains how Mao's great famine was so bad that people were left to eating cadavers and/or killing children to eat. This is so well catalogued it must be true and moreover, further up the chain of command, even Mao must have known.