If China had adopted Liu's policies, it would have became a much stronger nation than it is today. Subsequently the Chinese people could have had a much better life than what they have today.

Lowell Dittmer was also my professor. The only thing saving his dense lectures is the fact that he actually gets some information out. The book is strikingly similar because of Dittmer's convoluted sentences, overused abbreviations, and lack of real flow... Despite this, the text covers a great deal of information for those intensely interested in this area of study. If you can get through the book, you might learn a lot. And no, I'm not bitter, I got a good grade in the class :)

Lowell Dittmer is also my professor. The only thing saving his dense lectures is the fact that he actually gets some information out. The book is strikingly similar because of Dittmer's convoluted sentences, overused abbreviations, and lack of real flow (in addition to the previous review's comments). Despite this, the text covers a great deal of information for those intensely interested in this area of study. If you can get through the book, you might learn a lot.

In this book, Lowell Dittmer illuminates how Liu's beliefs on Communism differed from Mao's, and how radical Mao was.

Secondly, he explains the process of mass criticism in Cultural Revolution China, and moves towards a theory of mass criticism.

This book is very good. However, it has a few flaws. Dittmer isn't an extremely good writer, though he makes his points clearly. Also, he creates graphs of the frequency of mass criticism from which very little can be read, and then proceeds to draw odd conclusions from them. He also makes pointless diagrams, the content of which is rather obvious, and then develops strange terminology out of them, such as assigning people letters based on their function in mass criticism. Despite these idiosyncracies, this is a fine book.