Frank Dikötter on China’s Uneven Rise

The transformation of the Chinese economy over the last four decades is typically thought of as near-miraculous. Yet the facts and figures that make up that picture are those that have filtered down from the Chinese Communist Party. In China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower, Frank Dikötter’s wide-ranging research pulls back the curtain to reveal a much less tidy—and much more mixed—picture.