{"product_id":"2026200013587-secondhand-the-chairmans-new-clothes-mao-and-the-cultural-revolution","title":"The Chairman's New Clothes: Mao And The Cultural Revolution","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn one of the most searingly honest political critiques of the twentieth century, The Chairman's New Clothes: Mao and the Cultural Revolution strips away the propaganda and mythology surrounding Mao Zedong's most catastrophic experiment in social engineering, exposing the brutal reality hidden beneath the revolutionary rhetoric. Simon Leys — the pen name of Belgian sinologist Pierre Ryckmans — presents a forensic and damning account of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), arguing that what was packaged as a populist uprising against bourgeois corruption was, in truth, a calculated power struggle orchestrated by Mao to reassert his grip on the Chinese Communist Party.\n\nWritten with the moral clarity of a scholar who refused to be seduced by the fashionable Maoism sweeping Western intellectuals at the time, Leys' work stands as a landmark of dissident sinology — precise, courageous, and prophetic. His prose is razor-sharp, combining rigorous historical analysis with an almost literary indignation at the suffering inflicted upon the Chinese people. First published in French in 1971, the book scandalized many in the West who had romanticised the revolution, and its vindication by subsequent history only burnishes its reputation further. For anyone seeking to understand how absolute power corrupts an ideology — and a nation — this remains an indispensable, unsettling testament.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49203391824091,"sku":"2026200013587-SECONDHAND","price":20.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/9829d683-ff85-4bec-8d18-f62533d4770d.png?v=1788148367","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200013587-secondhand-the-chairmans-new-clothes-mao-and-the-cultural-revolution","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}