The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History

In anticipation of the opening of our upcoming exhibition, (De)constructing Ideology: The Cultural Revolution and Beyond, Frank Dikötter will present a brief history of the Cultural Revolution. 

Dr. Dikötter, Chair Professor at the University of Hong Kong and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, is the author of People’s Trilogy, an award-winning series of books that document the impact of communism on the lives of ordinary people in China, based on new archival material.

The first volume, entitled Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, won the 2011 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, Britain’s most prestigious book award for non-fiction. The second installment, The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution, 1945-1957, was short-listed for the Orwell Prize in 2014. The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962-1976 concludes the trilogy and was short-listed for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize in 2017. His latest book is entitled China after Mao: The Rise of a Superpower.