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China 1949
by Graham Hutchings
(Bloomsbury, £22.50)
THE MORE perspective we gain on the 20th century, the more the Chinese revolution must be considered as perhaps its most significant political development.
The 1949 victory of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was at once a connection with the world socialist revolution which had begun in 1917 in Russia and emblematic of the great tide of national liberation which eventually freed Asia, Africa and the Middle East from formal dependence on imperialism.
And it did, of course, change the system under which a quarter of the world’s people lived. This well-researched, clearly written and politically balanced book tells the story of the year in which the CPC came to power.

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