The Long March [Paperback]

The authors have put together a first-rate, considered account of what happened, how and to what end.

Jocelyn and McEwen's physical reconstruction of the march is wonderfully gruelling reading.

This remarkable study offers an extraordinary picture of China, past and present.

The new accounts are enjoyable to read. They help convey the ordeals suffered by the marchers...

'The Long March is brilliant from start to finish, and absolutely no one has paid me to say that.'

Extraordinary picture of China, past and present

Paints an intriguing picture of the sort of China that Westerners
can find if they get off the tourist buses and out of the tourist cities to
where the ordinary people are.

A book that is simultaneously comic, adventurous, well informed
and occasionally tragic.

The Long March is brilliant from start to finish, and absolutely
no one has paid me to say that' - HK

This is a living history of the legendary journey that made Mao's China. In October 1934, the First Front Army of the Chinese Communist Party fled annihilation by Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists. Some 80,000 men, women and children left their homes to walk with Mao into the unknown. One year, 4,000 miles and countless battles later, fewer than 4,000 were left. From these survivors would grow the army that conquered China 14 years on, changing history for ever. In October 2002, Ed Jocelyn and Andrew McEwen set off to retrace the Red Army's footsteps, and record the experiences of the last-remaining witnesses and participants of the Long March - before it was too late. The result is an account of the March based squarely on eye-witness accounts. It contrasts starkly with the official version and with recent contentions that the March was a fraud. The Long March really did happen, but it was spun into the key propaganda tool Mao wielded in his rise to ultimate power. Bringing together the historic event, with images of a changing society and their own March - a remarkable feat of endurance in itself - the authors offer a unique picture of China, past and present.

Ed Jocelyn and Andrew McEwen have lived in China since 1997. Both gave up steady jobs in journalism to start the Long March project. Preparations are currently under way for the Long March II expedition, along an alternative historic route.