{"product_id":"the-secret-listener-9780197573341","title":"The Secret Listener","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA first-hand account of what life was like in the period before the revolution and in Mao's reign, China was a vast human drama, as real people confronted, not political abstractions, but concrete, real challenges, often involving life and death, and she was a witness to the choices, the ways people behaved, in that situation. The Secret Listener gives a unique perspective on the era. Yuan-tsung Chen, who is now 90, and lived through most of it offers avantage point that provides us with a new, wider perspective on the Maoist regime, one of the most radical political experiments in modern history and a force that genuinely changed the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[A] beautifully crafted memoir.... [The Secret Listener is] a good antidote not just to official, sanitized versions of China's past but also to flattened-out portrayals of Mao's China as peopled by neatly separate groups of perpetrators and victims. * Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Foreign Affairs *\u003cbr\u003eBy opening a personal porthole into China's twentieth-century history, Yuan-tsung Chen, who lived through these tumultuous decades, allows Mao's tectonic and savage revolution to come alive in new and more convincing, if tragic, ways * Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director, Asia Society Center on US-China Relations *\u003cbr\u003eThe autobiography of the well-known author Yuan-tsung Chen is an enthralling sequel to her famous Return to the Middle Kingdom and The Dragon's Village. It is a fascinating life story of how challenging it was to be an intellectual woman in Mao's China even with some connections to the Party elite. The memoir reads like a novel but it also adds precious historical details to our understanding of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and other Chinese Communist Party leaders, as well as of such infamous events as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Thrilling and terrifying, intriguing and captivating, this is a brilliant first-hand account of the Maoist era. * Alexander V. Pantsov, coauthor of Mao: The Real Story *\u003cbr\u003eChen Yuan-tsung is not only a secret listener, but more importantly, a secret observer, and in this compelling memoir, she vividly portrays life, conflict, and love among elite and downtrodden circles in the Republican and Communist eras of twentieth-century China. She brilliantly recreates events and conversations that show how behind-the-scenes struggles at the top impact the daily lives of Chinese up and down the social and political hierarchies. * Thomas B. Gold, University of California, Berkeley *\u003cbr\u003eIn 1957, in the midst of Mao's anti-rightist campaign, Chen Yuan-tsung burned the manuscript she had dreamed would become her great book. Since leaving China in 1971, her two wonderful autobiographical novels have received well-deserved, enthusiastic praise. But it is with the publication of The Secret Listener that Chen's dream of writing a great book about China has finally come true. China specialists and neophytes alike will be fascinated, moved, and horrified by Chen's depiction of the struggles of ordinary Chinese, as their world turns upside down and some retain their integrity while many others lose it. * Anne F. Thurston, Editor of Engaging China *\u003cbr\u003eA sweeping and fascinating tale of an extraordinary life in a tumultuous China from the 1920s to 1970s. From foreign wars to civil wars to revolutionary campaigns designed to radically remake society, Yuan-tsung Chen not only observed it but participated in much of it. In her first-hand account Chen has produced a wonderfully written book easily accessible to all readers. * A. Tom Grunfeld, SUNY-Empire State College *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOpening Shot  The First Part: Before the Year of 1949 Chapter 1: My Family and Myself   Chapter 2: My First Beau Chapter 3: The Broadening of My Horizon Chapter 4: Stumbling into a Larger World  The Second Part: After the Year of 1949 Chapter 5: In Mao's Beijing Chapter 6: Outside the Great Wall, By the Blue Danube Chapter 7: I Felt It Was Me on Trial Chapter 8: A Purge in Reverse Chapter 9: A Reverse of the Reverse: The Anti-Rightists Purge  The Third Part: The Great Leap Forward Chapter 10: A Leap from the Magical Circle into Mao's Great Famine Chapter 11: A VIP Pig  Chapter 12: From Black Market to Fake Bumper Harvest Chapter 13: Between the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution  The Fourth Part: The Cultural Revolution Chapter 14: The Mob Rule Chapter 15: The Mob Rule Continued Chapter 16: Intrigues in a Slum House Chapter 17: Forced into Exile and Fought back  Epilogue","brand":"Oxford University Press Inc","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48732652699991,"sku":"9780197573341","price":22.04,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780197573341.jpg?v=1719997808","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-secret-listener-9780197573341","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}