Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962

The much-anticipated definitive account of Chinas Great Famine An estimated thirty-six million Chinese men, women and children starved to death during Chinas Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and early 60s. One of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century, the famine is poorly understood, and in China is still euphemistically referred to as the three years of natural disaster. As a journalist with privileged access to official and unofficial sources, Yang Jisheng spent twenty years piecing together the events that led to mass nationwide starvation, including the death of his own father. Finding no natural causes, Yang lays the deaths at the feet of Chinas totalitarian system and the refusal of officials at every level to value human life over ideology and self-interest. Tombstone is a testament to inhumanity and occasional heroism that pits collective mem