Black and Gold

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Thurston's vivid and vigorous look at China's Cultural Revolution does not attempt to match the epic social sweep of Jonathan Spence's classic The Gate of Heavenly Peace. The author, a China scholar whose insights into Chinese history are enriched by many visits to Beijing in recent years, focuses almost exclusively on the consequences of Mao's disastrous political ploy initiated in 1966-67 the impact of the Cultural Revolution's excesses on ``intellectuals,'' who by definition were viewed as ``enemies of the people.'' Through interviews she presents a bruising picture of what happened to academics and others (including ranking Communist cadres) who were harassed, beaten and ultimately imprisoned or banished to the countryside among a frightened peasantry. These individual portraits are often numbing in their poignancy and together they comprise a re-creation warm with life. (February 25)

Library Journal

There are several personal accounts of the Cultural Revolution, e.g.,Yue Daiyun and Carolyn Wakeman's To the Storm ( LJ 11/1/86), but until now no one has attempted a broader study of how the Cultural Revolution affected the whole intellectual stratum in China. Thurston's approach is based on interviews with about 50 Chinese intellectuals. She sees the Cultural Revolution as an example of mass psychosis during which almost everyone in government, higher education, and the arts suffered denunciation, betrayals, family separations, and some form of imprisonment. She concludes ``the dominant legacy of the Cultural Revolution is the invisible wounds, the slow, silent screams'' of its victims. After all her research however, something of the Cultural Revolution remains inexplicable. Similar in quality and tone to the works of Robert Jay Lifton, this leaves the reader to speculate about the ultimate causes of mass psychosis. David D. Buck, History Dept., Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee