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Title details for Out of Mao's Shadow by Philip P. Pan - Available

Out of Mao's Shadow

The Struggle for the Soul of a New China

by Philip P. Pan
David Colacci
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
Prize-winning journalist Philip P. Pan offers an unprecedented inside look at the momentous battle underway for China's future. On one side is the entrenched party elite determined to preserve its authoritarian grip on power. On the other is a collection of lawyers, journalists, entrepreneurs, activists, hustlers, and dreamers striving to build a more tolerant, open, and democratic China. The outcome of this dramatic, hidden struggle will shape China's rise to superpower status—and determine how it affects the rest of the world.

From factories in the rusting 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, Pan speaks with men and women fighting and sacrificing for change. An elderly surgeon exposes the government's cover-up of the SARS epidemic. A filmmaker investigates the execution of a student in the Cultural Revolution. A blind man is jailed for leading a crusade against forced abortions carried out under the one-child policy.


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 the moving story of a nation in transition, of a people coming to terms with their past.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 1, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781400127504
      • File size: 377969 KB
      • Duration: 13:07:26

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Amid all the reports of the New China, Pan tells of another side of China through 10 intersecting profiles that show much despair over the actions of the nation's authoritarian government. There is a documentary filmmaker's quest to record the life of a dissident poet. A retiree determined to record how local victims of the Cultural Revolution died. And others. David Colacci is a capable reader. He carries the material with an even tone, adding emotion when necessary for impact or effect. He adopts slight voice changes for selected characters. It's successful when he quotes official documents, less so with female characters. But because the book has no overarching dramatic line, listeners will need to apply themselves, rather than be compelled. It's easy to stop listening at the end of chapters. R.C.G. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from May 19, 2008
      As the Olympics focus the world's attention on China, an array of books examine that burgeoning country from a variety of perspectives.
      Out of Mao's Shadow: Stories from the Struggle for China's Soul
      Philip P. Pan
      . Simon & Schuster
      , $28 (352p) ISBN 978-1-4165-3705-2

      Ex-Washington Post
      Beijing bureau chief Pan focuses these 11 profiles on China's lonely dissidents: a filmmaker documents a Mao-era dissident who wrote a prison manifesto in her own blood; a doctor acclaimed for blowing the whistle on the SARS epidemic is arrested for writing about the Tiananmen Square massacre; an editor tests the party's tolerance for muckraking. These narratives show China's social and political tensions playing out through personal enmities, petty bribery and subtle moral compromises. Pan's stirring reportage shows that, even in China, the individual can make a difference—at a price. B&w photos.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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