Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China

From an award-winning journalist for The Washington Post and one of the leading China correspondents of his generation comes an eloquent and vivid chronicle of the world's most successful authoritarian state — a nation undergoing a remarkable transformation.

Philip P. Pan's groundbreaking book takes us inside the dramatic battle for China's soul and into the lives of individuals struggling to come to terms with their nation's past — the turmoil and trauma of Mao's rule — and to take control of its future. Capitalism has brought prosperity and global respect to China, but the Communist government continues to resist the demands of its people for political freedom.

Pan, who reported in China for the Post for seven years and speaks fluent Chinese, eluded the police and succeeded in going where few Western journalists have dared.

From the rusting factories in the industrial northeast to a tabloid newsroom in the booming south, from a small-town courtroom to the plush offices of the nation's wealthiest tycoons, he tells the gripping stories of ordinary men and women fighting for political change. An elderly surgeon exposes the government's cover-up of the SARS epidemic. A filmmaker investigates the execution of a young woman during the Cultural Revolution. A blind man is jailed for leading a crusade against forced abortions carried out under the one-child policy.

The young people who filled Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989 saw their hopes for a democratic China crushed in a massacre, but Pan reveals that as older, more pragmatic adults, many continue to push for justice in different ways. They are survivors whose families endured one of the world's deadliest famines during the Great Leap Forward, whose idealism was exploited during the madness of the Cultural Revolution, and whose values have been tested by the booming economy and the rush to get rich.

Now in paperback, an intimate, elegant account of a society in turmoil: the most important book in a generation about the Chinese people and their long, heartbreaking battle for political freedom.

Out of Mao’s Shadow offers a startling perspective on China and its remarkable transformation, challenging conventional wisdom about the political apathy of the Chinese people and the notion that prosperity leads automatically to freedom. Like David Remnick’s Lenin’s Tomb, this is a moving story of a nation in transition, of a people coming to terms with their past and struggling to take control of their future.

Philip P. Pan is the Washington Post’s bureau chief in Moscow and the newspaper’s former Beijing bureau chief. During his tour in China from 2000 to 2007, he won the Livingston Award for Young Journalists in international reporting, the Overseas Press Club’s Bob Considine Award for best newspaper interpretation of international affairs, and the Asia Society’s Osborn Elliott Prize for excellence in Journalism on Asia. He lives with his wife and son in Moscow.

Introduction

Part I

REMEMBERING

1. The Public Funeral

2. Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul

3. Blood and Love

4. The Cemetery

Part II

NO BETTER THAN THIEVES

5. Arise, Slaves, Arise!

6. The Rich Lady

7. The Party Boss

Part III

STRUGGLE SESSIONS

8. The Honest Doctor

9. The Newspaperman

10. The People's Trial

11. Blind Justice

Epilogue

Note on Sources

Acknowledgments

Index