By addressing the issues that decimated China's monolithic elite in the late 1960s, this text illuminates not only the life and fate of Liu Shaoqi, but also the policy-making process of a revolutionary state facing the diverting exigencies of economic modernization and political development.

This sweeping reference work covers every aspect of the Cold War, from its ignition in the ashes of World War II, through the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis, to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Cold War superpower face-off between the Soviet Union and the United States dominated international affairs in the second half of the 20th century and still reverberates around the world today. This comprehensive and insightful multivolume set provides authoritative entries on all aspects of this world-changing event, including wars, new military technologies, diplomatic initiatives, espionage activities, important individuals and organizations, economic developments, societal and cultural events, and more. This expansive coverage provides readers with the necessary context to understand the many facets of this complex conflict. The work begins with a preface and introduction and then offers illuminating introductory essays on the origins and course of the Cold War, which are followed by some 1,500 entries on key individuals, wars, battles, weapons systems, diplomacy, politics, economics, and art and culture. Each entry has cross-references and a list of books for further reading. The text includes more than 100 key primary source documents, a detailed chronology, a glossary, and a selective bibliography. Numerous illustrations and maps are inset throughout to provide additional context to the material.

In 1936 a group of Chinese communists were released from jail after a humiliating renunciation of communism. The Chinese Communist Party then secretly employed them to galvanise support in nationalist areas of the country. It later condemned the members of this group as renegades before finally rehabilitating them in 1978. Pamela Lubell uncovers the fascinating history of these communists, known as the Sixty-one, and in doing so produces a revealing account of the tensions within the Chinese Communist Party.

Through the individual characteristics of China's political leaders, a nation-building process began. Chinese leaders fell into two categories of reformers: conservative and liberal. Conservative reformers saw a corruption of the moral order of society that needed to be eliminated in order to restore the country's moral integrity, while liberal reformers attempted to embrace the flaws and lead China toward Socialism. One hundred Chinese leaders—from the Opium War to 2001—are profiled in this comprehensive biographical dictionary. This book provides the most up-to-date coverage of modern Chinese political leadership during the Imperial, Republican, and Communist periods. Political leaders throughout each period had a common desire for reform within the country while maintaining China's political and cultural legacy. Leung invokes the uniqueness of those leaders in their struggle for personal gain and national improvement as they fought to preserve traditional values. Written by 30 international scholars and experts in the field using both Western and Chinese sources, this is the most authoritative dictionary on the subject.