Deng Xiaoping: Chronicle of an Empire. By Ruan Ming. Translated and edited by Nancy Liu, Peter Rand, and Lawrence R. Sullivan, with a foreword by Andrew J. Nathan. Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press, 1994. xxii, 288 pp. $69.00 (hardcover); $19.95 (paper).

Abstract

Part 1 The basis of Deng Xiaoping's power (1976-1979): Mao dies and Hua Guofeng blocks Deng Xiaoping's return Hu Yaobang paves the way for Deng's return Deng first joins and then breaks with the Democracy Wall Movement the war to punish Vietnam lays the foundation of Deng's power. Part 2 The critical element in Deng Xiaoping's reform (1979-1986): the apotheosis of Chinese reform - the countryside overwhelms the cities from "promoting proletarian ideology and eliminating bourgeois ideas" to reforming the political system the situation in Poland and Deng's second break with the democratic reformers the Chen Yun clique and the first alliance against Hu Yaobang Deng counter-attacks the economic reform movement Deng breaks with the democratic forces for the last time and Hu Yaobang falls. Part 3 The end of the empire (1987-1989): Deng Xiaoping and Xhao Ziyang enjoy a short honeymoon the self-isolating "new authoritarians" tragedy for democracy in Tiananmen Square the defeat of violence and the last days of the empire.