Tombstone: The Untold Story of Mao's Great Famine

Product Description

'I call this book Tombstone. It is a tombstone for my father who died of starvation in 1959, for the thirty-six million Chinese who also starved to death, for the system that brought about their death, and perhaps for myself for writing this book.'

More people died in Mao's Great Famine than in the entire First World War, yet this story has remained largely untold, until now. Still banned in China, Tombstone draws on the author's privileged access to official and unofficial sources to uncover the full human cost of the tragedy, and create an unprecedented work of historical reckoning.

'The first proper history of China's great famine . . . some are already calling Yang 'China's Solzhenitsyn'.' Anne Applebaum, author of Gulag

'A book of great importance.' Jung Chang, author of Wild Swans

'A political sensation.' Rana Mitter, Guardian

'One of the best books I've come across in 50 years of reading about China.' Jonathan Mirsky, Spectator, Books of the Year
 
'Shocking . . . this is the first detailed analysis of the famine written by a Chinese author who lived through it.' Economist
 
'One of the most important works of history written this century.' Kerry Brown, The Times Higher Education