A succinct account of the life and thought of Mao Zedong in the context of the Chinese revolution, showing Mao's impact on the 20th century world.

Preface and Acknowledgments
1. China in the World in Mao's Youth
2. From Liberal to Communist, 1912-1921
3. Toward the Peasant Revolution, 1921-1927
4. Establishing Revolutionary Bases: From Jinggangshan to Yan'an, 1928-1935
5. Yan'an, the War of Resistance against Japan, and Civil War, 1935-1949
6. Stabilizing Society and the Transition to Socialism, 1949-1957
7. Great Leap and Restoration, 1958-1965
8. The Cultural Revolution:Politics in Command, 1966-1969
9. The Cultural Revolution: Denouement and the Death of Mao, 1969-1976
10. Reform, Restoration, and the Repudiation of Maoism, 1976-present
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Rebecca E. Karl is Associate Professor of History at New York University. She is the author of Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, and co-translator (with Xueping Zhong) of Cai Xiang's Revolution and Its Narratives: China’s Socialist Literary and Cultural Imaginaries, 1949-1966, all also published by Duke University Press. She co-translated and coedited (with Lydia H. Liu and Dorothy Ko) The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory.