China In Our Time Summary

The book “China in Our Time” talks about many different things that happened to China in the twentieth century. The major ones are events before communism, Mao Zedong’s era, Deng Xiaoping’s era, and the Tiananmen Square Massacre. These events and people changed China dramatically.
At the beginning of the book, it jumps around the twentieth century, about some leaders of China, and a little of what Ross Terrill, the author of the book did in China. The book talks a little bit about the Vietnam War, then the civil war in China, then Chiang Kai-Shek, then World War II, and so on. After jumping around the twentieth century, the book then goes to Mao Zedong before becoming the Communist leader. It first talks about where Mao was born to what he did growing up to how he became interested in communism. The book would then go to what he did to events in China to communism to a story of someone and then back to Mao. Later, the book would focus on Mao.
In the middle of the book, Mao Zedong is focused on. There are many things that he did when he was leader of China. The Cultural Revolution was a big thing during Mao’s time. There were several Chinese citizens who told the author what they thought about the Cultural Revolution. Some …show more content…
At first, the Chinese wondered of what they would do without Mao Zedong leading them since he had been the leader of China for about forty years. There were people who liked him and others who hated him. Some things changed in China when Deng Xiaoping became the leader of China. Deng seemed like a good until the event at Tiananmen Square. There were college students that were protesting in Tiananmen Square. The protest was on May fourth, 1989 which was forty years after the first protest for democracy. The book talks about how horrible the massacre was, what the author had seen and heard of what happened in the massacre, and what happened after