Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China
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Review
The product of 10 years of work by a leading China scholar, it is essential reading for anybody who wants to understand the evolution of China to the status it occupies today...Vogel is an admiring biographer who presents a treasure trove of new information that will delight modern China scholars for years to come.
- Jonathan Fenby
--Times Higher Education, October 2011
"Vogel is a master of this complex material...The documentary sources are copious, and in terms of access to material, this study is unlikely to be bettered until the [Chinese Communist] Party opens its most sensitive archives - which could be a very long wait". --Literary Review, November 2011
"Vogel...has written a meticulously researched book that concentrates mainly on the story from the mid-1970s to the 1990s. He could have subtitled the book not the "transformation" but the "stabilisation" of China, as he describes Deng's impressive calming strategy at home and abroad".
--Economist, October 2011
- Jonathan Fenby
--Times Higher Education, October 2011
"Vogel is a master of this complex material...The documentary sources are copious, and in terms of access to material, this study is unlikely to be bettered until the [Chinese Communist] Party opens its most sensitive archives - which could be a very long wait". --Literary Review, November 2011
"Vogel...has written a meticulously researched book that concentrates mainly on the story from the mid-1970s to the 1990s. He could have subtitled the book not the "transformation" but the "stabilisation" of China, as he describes Deng's impressive calming strategy at home and abroad".
--Economist, October 2011
Product Description
Perhaps no one in the twentieth century had a greater long-term impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping. And no scholar of contemporary East Asian history and culture is better qualified than Ezra Vogel to disentangle the many contradictions embodied in the life and legacy of China's boldest strategist. Once described by Mao Zedong as a 'needle inside a ball of cotton,' Deng was the pragmatic yet disciplined driving force behind China's radical transformation in the late twentieth century. He confronted the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, dissolved Mao's cult of personality, and loosened the economic and social policies that had stunted China's growth. Obsessed with modernization and technology, Deng opened trade relations with the West that lifted hundreds of millions of his countrymen out of poverty. Yet at the same time he answered to his authoritarian roots, most notably when he ordered the crackdown in June 1989 at Tiananmen Square. Deng's youthful commitment to the Communist Party was cemented in Paris in the early 1920s, among a group of Chinese student-workers that also included Zhou Enlai. Deng returned home in 1927 to join the Chinese Revolution on the ground floor. In the fifty years of his tumultuous rise to power, he endured accusations, purges, and even exile before becoming China's preeminent leader from 1978 to 1989 and again in 1992. When he reached the top, Deng saw an opportunity to creatively destroy much of the economic system he had helped build for five decades as a loyal follower of Mao - and he did not hesitate.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Deng was a giant of a man. Not in size but in stature. He was the man who ensured China grew to be a economic power house within 20 years after his death. What is remarkable is that he only became paramount leader after he was released from exile imposed during the Cultural Revolution. So he started ruling China at the ripe age of 73.
This just released 700 page biography is a very readable book. It is written in a chronological manner. Not much is known of Deng's life as his modus operandi is not to leave notes but to commit all records to memory. This was his means to stay alive.
I highly recommend this book as the previous biography by Richard Evans was published way back in 1994.
This just released 700 page biography is a very readable book. It is written in a chronological manner. Not much is known of Deng's life as his modus operandi is not to leave notes but to commit all records to memory. This was his means to stay alive.
I highly recommend this book as the previous biography by Richard Evans was published way back in 1994.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Ask someone to think of a famous Chinese leader and inevitably it will be Chairman Mao of course. Whilst Mao may be the great revolutionary it is Deng who has the claim to be the father of todays economic superpower. Whilst Mao was the idealist believing in the class struggle who launched the disasterous great leap forward and cultural revolution it was Deng the pragmatist who put in place the beginnings of what is China's current progress.
The book starts with Deng's background but quite rapidly jumps to 1949 mainly I think because there is little documentary evidence to work from. It then goes through his many rises and falls as Mao's moods took him until his eventual rise in the late seventies to pre-eminant leader and then in detail his leadership years.
It's an excellent book on an important subject which flags ocassionally as it gets bogged down in the many economic reforms. That said I would advise it as a good read to anyone.
The book starts with Deng's background but quite rapidly jumps to 1949 mainly I think because there is little documentary evidence to work from. It then goes through his many rises and falls as Mao's moods took him until his eventual rise in the late seventies to pre-eminant leader and then in detail his leadership years.
It's an excellent book on an important subject which flags ocassionally as it gets bogged down in the many economic reforms. That said I would advise it as a good read to anyone.
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Ezra Vogel does a good job in covering the life of Deng Xiaoping. One is left with the impression that if it wasn't for Deng China would still be a backward communist country. One wonders where China might be today if Deng had become leader back in 1949 rather than after Mao's death.
I shall spare you a summary of the book because it would be impossible to do so in any meaningful way. Besides, you will find it far more interesting to read the book yourself.
A number of issues I wasn't terribly excited about. Even though the author concentrates mostly on Deng's period as China's supreme leader I would have liked more details about his earlier life - 35 pages to cover 65 years struck me as a bit inadequate. I would have loved to read something about Deng's position on the "100 flowers campaign" and on "the great leap forward" to name just two major events prior to 1969.
Secondly, the author could have made better use of the editor. The text could do with some tidying up. The word Deng is used a lot more than is necessary - at times its use becomes quite tedious.
Also the author should avoid `silly mistakes' such as ... `Deng did engage in the majority of his reforms after Jiang Qing's death'. She died (or committed suicide) in 1991 and not a lot earlier as the author implies.
At the end of the narrative the author lists a number of `key people in the Deng era'. I think the key people who ran China in the 1990s should be included there. Also the information given could have been tidied up quite a bit and lastly I would have liked to see this section at the beginning of the narrative because it makes more sense to list the key people there rather than at the end.
Having said all this Ezra Vogel's book on Deng Xiaoping should be compulsory reading for anyone interested in this period of China's history. For anyone interested in Deng's early life I can recommend Richard Evans' book on Deng Xiaoping and the Making of Modern China because he covers that side of his life quite well. There are also a number of other books mentioned in Ezra Vogel's Preface, which should be worthwhile reading.
The author states somewhere in his Preface, that he hopes that this book will become the standard volume on the subject. I think not. A more correct second edition perhaps.
I shall spare you a summary of the book because it would be impossible to do so in any meaningful way. Besides, you will find it far more interesting to read the book yourself.
A number of issues I wasn't terribly excited about. Even though the author concentrates mostly on Deng's period as China's supreme leader I would have liked more details about his earlier life - 35 pages to cover 65 years struck me as a bit inadequate. I would have loved to read something about Deng's position on the "100 flowers campaign" and on "the great leap forward" to name just two major events prior to 1969.
Secondly, the author could have made better use of the editor. The text could do with some tidying up. The word Deng is used a lot more than is necessary - at times its use becomes quite tedious.
Also the author should avoid `silly mistakes' such as ... `Deng did engage in the majority of his reforms after Jiang Qing's death'. She died (or committed suicide) in 1991 and not a lot earlier as the author implies.
At the end of the narrative the author lists a number of `key people in the Deng era'. I think the key people who ran China in the 1990s should be included there. Also the information given could have been tidied up quite a bit and lastly I would have liked to see this section at the beginning of the narrative because it makes more sense to list the key people there rather than at the end.
Having said all this Ezra Vogel's book on Deng Xiaoping should be compulsory reading for anyone interested in this period of China's history. For anyone interested in Deng's early life I can recommend Richard Evans' book on Deng Xiaoping and the Making of Modern China because he covers that side of his life quite well. There are also a number of other books mentioned in Ezra Vogel's Preface, which should be worthwhile reading.
The author states somewhere in his Preface, that he hopes that this book will become the standard volume on the subject. I think not. A more correct second edition perhaps.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
The world greates changeleader
Deng is "perhaps the" greatest change leader in World History - in terms of his influence on the number of people and the economy and his nationally, regionally and globally... Read more
Published 1 month ago by René Bugge
A detailed, and thoroughly readable biography
Ezra Vogel's biography of Deng Xiaoping is a work long overdue within the numerous literature on modern China, and a work in every way entirely worth the wait. Read more
Published 3 months ago by A. J. Smith
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