Felix Wemheuer - A Social History of Maoist China: Conflict and Change, 1949–1976

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Felix Wemheuer 2019

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For my mother, Christina Wemheuer

I am deeply grateful to the many colleagues and anonymous reviewers whose feedback has enriched this manuscript, and above all for the patient guidance of Lucy Rhymer, my editor at Cambridge University Press. Cameron Henderson-Begg and Lisa Kindervater worked tirelessly to improve the English style and the flow of my arguments. Their diligence has made this a better and more readable book.

Several colleagues provided comments on drafts of individual chapters. For their invaluable suggestions, I am indebted among others to Bjrn Alpermann (University of Wrzburg), Wu Yidi (University of California, Irvine), Wu Yiching (University of Toronto), Neil Diamant (Dickinson College), Cui Jinke (University of Vienna), Brian Demare (Tulane University), Eddy U (University of California, Davis), Puck Engman (University of Freiburg), Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik (University of Vienna), Andrew Walder (Stanford University), Li Minqi (University of Utah), Cormac O Grada (University College Dublin), Daniel Fuchs (SOAS, University of London), Daniel Leese (University of Freiburg), Kimberely Ens Manning (Concordia University of Montreal), Jessica Pflger (University of Bochum), Suy Lan Hopmann (Free University of Berlin), Klaus Mhlhahn (University of Berlin), Zhu Meiting (University of Cologne), Jrn Goldberg (University of Frankfurt), Thomas Scharping (University of Cologne) and Xu Mengran (University of Toronto).

I would like to thank Cao Shuji (Jiaotong University, Shanghai) for sharing historical documents for this project. I am also grateful to all the eyewitnesses of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in China who have allowed me to interview them over the years. Their contributions have been immensely valuable. Jing Wenyu (University of Cologne) supported me with helpful editorial work. Vivienne Guo (University of Exeter) completed early translations of several documents into English. I wish to thank Gleb Netchvolodov for drawing graphs and maps.