As someone who knew very little Chinese history, this was a fascinating book. We follow various underground historians, or dissidents as the Chinese government would call them, set across the ages. Some, hundreds of years ago, but mainly, it is the story of people keeping the past 100 years of history alive, despite the best efforts of the Chinese government to forget. The mass starvation during the great famine of the late 50’s under Mao’s mismanagement, mass burials of the cultural revolution, and the many executions or lifelong detention of “dissidents” for simply speaking with an open mind. As the party has changed hands from Mao, to Deng Xiaoping, and now Xi Jinping, the country has seen massive change. Much of it for the better, but the need to control history has resulted in lost truths which are harrowingly kept alive by a select few.
4/5.