What to read to understand China’s hidden past

The chinese communist party is desperate to control China’s past as well as its present. Histories of the country, particularly those that deal with periods that the government would rather forget, or rewrite, are as tightly controlled as contemporary journalism. But some Chinese and Western writers manage to lift the veil on the country’s tumultuous past. Comparisons are often made between Xi Jinping, China’s current leader, and Mao Zedong, the first leader of the People’s Republic. These six books help to make sense of how the arc of history, in the years that have passed between those two men, has bent towards, and away from, progress.