Join internationally renowned historian Frank Dikötter, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize, as he unpacks a myth­shattering history of China from the death of Chairman Mao to Xi Jinping.

Through decades of direct experience of the People’s Republic combined with extraordinary access to hundreds of hitherto unseen documents in communist party archives, he will take us inside the country’s unprecedented four-decade economic transformation that vaulted the nation from the 126th ­largest economy in the world to second ­largest.

A historian at the pinnacle of his field, Dikötter challenges much of what we think we know about how this happened. Casting aside the image of a society marching unwaveringly toward growth, in lockstep to the beat of the party drum, he recounts instead a fascinating tale of contradictions, illusions, and palace intrigue, of disasters narrowly averted, shadow banking, anti-corruption purges, and extreme state wealth existing alongside everyday poverty.

Don’t miss this brilliantly researched and mesmerizing account of a country in flux – and in crisis.

Copies of Dikötter’s acclaimed new book China After Mao will be available to purchase and have signed after the event.

Presented in collaboration with How to Academy.

Speaker:

Frank Dikötter is Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. His books have changed the way historians view China, from the classic The Discourse of Race in Modern China to his award-winning People’s Trilogy documenting the lives of ordinary people under Mao. He is married and lives in Hong Kong.

Attendance is restricted to Conduit members

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