The Mao Estate

This book comprises about 1,000 largely original images of life in the People's Republic of China during the last years of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and on to the rise of Deng Xiaoping. They illustrate the China that Mao Zedong bequeathed to his nation. They also cover the immediate post-Mao transition period. Almost all of the images were taken by the authors during professional and study tours between 1970 and 1980. The images provide insights into everyday life and...
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This book comprises about 1,000 largely original images of life in the People's Republic of China during the last years of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and on to the rise of Deng Xiaoping. They illustrate the China that Mao Zedong bequeathed to his nation. They also cover the immediate post-Mao transition period. Almost all of the images were taken by the authors during professional and study tours between 1970 and 1980. The images provide insights into everyday life and ideological prescriptions of the times. They have a broad scope covering twelve themes: Agriculture and food; The Built environment; Culture, heritage, recreation and scenery; Education and training; Health care - city and country; Ideology and politics; Libraries, book-selling and information; Industry; Labouring and work; People; Transport; Welfare of young people. Each image is accompanied by a description which includes the place and date taken and, in many cases, explanatory notes and translations that elucidate political, historical and ideological themes relevant to the times. The two authors who took the vast majority of the images were Australian educators who were actively involved in developing educational and cultural exchange between Australia and China. This unique set of images and supporting documentation contributes to an understanding of the period prior to the changes wrought by the Four Modernizations initiated by Deng Xiaoping which launched China along the path to becoming a world power. So dramatic has been the change that the images presented point to a very different age in the continuum of China's historical progress when viewed from the historical and current international perspectives.