Media

History in the Making Public Lecture Series "Mao's Great Famine" by Professor Frank Dikötter (English Only)

10 Nov 2010

Professor Frank Dikötter, Chair Professor of the Humanities, the University of Hong Kong (HKU), will speak about his book "Mao's Great Famine" on November 11 (Thursday) at HKU.

Professor Dikötter has produced a groundbreaking history of China's Great Famine in his new book, which recasts the era of Mao Zedong and the history of the People's Republic of China. His presentation, based on hundreds of hitherto unseen party archives, will explore how "between 1958 and 1962, China descended into hell", and discuss how Mao Zedong threw his country into a mass frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch and overtake Britain in less than 15 years. "The experiment," Professor Dikötter writes, "ended in the greatest catastrophe the country had ever known, destroying tens of millions of lives."

Professor Dikötter makes clear, as nobody has before, that far from being the program that would lift the country among the world's superpowers and prove the power of communism, as Mao imagined, the Great Leap Forward transformed the country in the other direction. It became the site not only of one of the most deadly mass killings of human history, as at least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death, but also the greatest demolition of real estate in human history, as up to a third of all housing was turned into rubble. The experiment was a catastrophe for the natural world as well, as the land was savaged in the pursuit of steel and other industrial accomplishments.

The talk is the first of a public lecture series entitled "History in the Making" presented by the Department of History at HKU. The aim of the series is to highlight the importance and relevance of history to the broader community. A focus of this series is to facilitate exposure to, and engagement between, eminent historians and the Hong Kong public.

Media representatives are cordially invited to the talk. Details are as follows:

Date: 11 November 2010 (Thursday)
Time: 6.30pm
Location: Rayson Huang Theatre, The University of Hong Kong

For more information about the book and book reviews, please visit Professor Frank Dikötter's website: www.frankdikotter.com./

For enquiries about the programme, please call: 2859 2874 or email history@hku.hk

For media enquiries, please contact: Ms Trinni Choy, tel: 2859 2606 email: pychoy@hku.hk  or Ms Melanie Wan tel: 2859 2600 email: melwkwan@hku.hk