Mao's Great Famine
Cover of the 2010 first edition
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| Author | Frank Dikötter |
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| Language | English |
| Publisher |
Walker & Company (hardcover, US) Bloomsbury Publishing (hardcover, UK and softcover, US) |
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Publication date
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6 September 2010 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 448 |
| ISBN | (hardcover, US) |
Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62, is a 2010 book by professor and historian Frank Dikötter about the Great Chinese Famine of 1958–1962 in the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong (1893–1976).
Based on four years of research in recently opened Chinese provincial, county, and city archives, Dikötter supports an estimate of at least 45 million premature deaths in China during the famine years. Dikötter characterizes the Great Famine as "The worst catastrophe in China's history, and one of the worst anywhere".
The book won the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2011, and has been described by Andrew J. Nathan, Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Columbia University, as "the most detailed account yet" of the Great Chinese Famine.
Dikötter is Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong, where he teaches courses on both Mao and the Great Chinese Famine, and Professor of the Modern History of China from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. The author's research behind the book was funded in the UK by the Wellcome Trust, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the Economic and Social Research Council, and in Hong Kong by the Research Grants Council and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation.
Dikötter was one of only a few historians granted access to the relevant Chinese archives.
On a website providing exposure for the book, Dikötter detailed his key arguments. First, he states that the famine lasted at least four years (early 1958 to late 1962), not the three sometimes stated. And after researching large volumes of Chinese archives, Dikötter concluded that decisions coming from the top officials of the Chinese government in Beijing were the direct cause of the famine.
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