Intruder in Mao's Realm by Richard Kirkby
In 1974, out of the blue, Richard Kirkby got the opportunity to go to one of the most isolated places on the planet, Communist China. Then for more than three years, he watched from the inside as China dealt with the disastrous consequences of the Culture Revolution, the death of Chairman Mao, and the beginnings of the new world that followed. His story provides unique insight into the Cultural Revolution and the role of foreigners in Mao's China.
Richard Kirkby was born in Yorkshire, into a farming family with very strong China antecedents, and was educated at a Quaker school, at Bristol University and at the Architectural Association, London. Unlike many of his peers, he remembers the Sixties, when he was heavily involved in student politics. In the early 1970s, he spread his wings to Cultural Revolution China, with a quest centering on China's development model of massive industrialisation with little of the usually attendant urban squalor. He taught English at Nanjing University from 1974 to 1977, an experience enriched by spells of labour in rice paddies and a factory machine shop. After Mao Zedong's death but with China still in troubled times, he moved to Shandong University in Jinan city. Since 1980, the author has been a consultant on the Chinese economy, a director of a China firm, a writer of academic tracts (starting with his 1985 book Urbanisation in China, which is considered a foundation work in the field), and a broadcaster. In the 1990s, he exchanged his barefoot academic status for a fully shoed one at Liverpool University, directing a China research institute. In the city's Chinatown, he oversaw the creation of a ceremonial archway. He now focuses on Chinese art and the classical guitar, as well as fell walking in his home territory of the Lake District. He is married to museologist Louise Tythacott; his children are the fourth generation in his family to get the China bug.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9789888422043 |
| ISBN 10 | 9888422049 |
| Title | Intruder in Mao's Realm |
| Author | Richard Kirkby |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Earnshaw Books Limited |
| Year published | 2017-01-30 |
| Number of pages | 474 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |