What book should I read to learn the Chinese version of the Mao era?

[vellocet]

I have read plenty of the Mao era as described by foreigners, including Jiang Qing's biography that she sat down with a foreigner during her exile  and spelled out, a remarkable book. However, I want to know what Chinese teach about the Mao era. But this is locked away in Chinese books I will never have the level or the time to read, I translated enough baffling government jargon in the pre-Google Translate era to know I never want to wrestle with that highly specific  vocabulary again. What I would really love to do is sit down with a Chinese  high school level textbook that explains what went on during Mao, and why.  I've tried reading entire books by taking photos with Baidu Translate (notably the Drivers' Handbook) and it sucks. I'd prefer something in English, preferably not written by a foreigner. 

I  am inspired by a similar book from Michael Malice, "Dear Reader".  He traveled to North Korea with an empty suitcase and while there, he picked up every piece of propaganda he could find.  After his return, he sat down, read it all, and wrote a book explaining the story of DPRK as told by the DPRK. Does such a similar book exist in English?  

I suppose you could say the entire 20th century but I don't want to go too far back. Chinese history is simply too large. 

[Tomsima]

I have a copy of Red Color News Soldier and think it probably fits the bill for your request pretty well. Great book, though banned in some regions from what I understand, so can be a little difficult to get hold of.

[SunAtEight]

Obviously the huge split is with Deng Xiaoping taking over. Everything official in China (like a high school textbook) will come back to the 1981 "Resolution on certain questions in the history of our party since the founding of the People’s Republic of China" when discussing the Mao era. This is the core text. I thought I had more texts immediately at hand, but here's one, at least (also from back in the Deng era): Party History Research Centre of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, History of the Chinese Communist Party: A Chronology of Events (1919-1990) (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1991).

 

If you want some of the Chinese New Left/neo-Maoist objections to this framing, you have Mobo Gao's very polemical The Battle for China's Past: Mao & the Cultural Revolution (London: Pluto Press, 2008) and Wen Tiejun's more academic, ecologically-focused and recent Ten Crises: The Political Economy of China’s Development (1949-2020) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Both, however, support the current Chinese state (especially since Xi Jinping).

 

If you want to consume it in pop drama form, the series Deng Xiaoping at History's Crossroads (2014) is available on Youtube with English subtitles.

 

Let me know if you have any further questions!