''Mao's Last Revolution'' is a 2006 book by

Roderick MacFarquhar Roderick "Rod" Lemonde MacFarquhar (2 December 1930 – 10 February 2019) was a British China scholar, politician, and journalist. MacFarquhar had a varied career. He was founding editor of ''China Quarterly'' in 1959. He served as a Member of ...

and

Michael Schoenhals Michael Schoenhals (born 1953) is a Swedish sinologist, specializing in the society of modern China. He is Professor Emeritus of Chinese Studies at Lund University. The book ''Mao's Last Revolution'' by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals ...

released by

Belknap Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...

. Harvard University Press presented it as " acFarquhar and Schoenhalsexplain why Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, and show his Machiavellian role in masterminding it (which Chinese publications conceal)."

Reception

It is considered the seminal work on the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

in China 1966−1976.

Judith Shapiro Judith R. Shapiro (born January 24, 1942) is a former President of Barnard College, a liberal arts college for women at Columbia University; as President of Barnard, she was also an academic dean within the university. She was also a professor ...

wrote in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' 2006 that it "provides a detailed account of the salvos, currents, countercurrents, conspiracies, waves, cleansings and purges for which the era is known." She called it an "important first effort to establish the facts", "the first major history of the elite politics of the period" and that it may "encourage healthy debate over state manipulation of historical memory".

References

.
Red Guards
, ''

'', 8 October 2006. Tom Phillips.
The Cultural Revolution: all you need to know about China's political convulsion
, theguardian.com, 11 May 2016. Retrieved 24 June 2016. "The seminal work on the period is Mao's Last Revolution by Roderick MacFaquhuar and Michael Schoenhals, a blow-by-blow account of the turmoil." Mao's Last Revolution
, hup.harvard.edu. Books about the Cultural Revolution 2006 non-fiction books {{poli-book-stub