“Powerful, engrossing . . . Give[s] a voice to the untold millions of Chinese who were silenced by utopian Communist violence and repression . . . Dikötter functions as something like a one-man truth commission, relentlessly excavating horrors that took tens of millions of lives.” ―New York Times Book Review-------------------------------- “An intensely researched and disquieting history of communism's growth.” ―Kirkus Reviews-------------------------------- “Frank Dikötter is an iconoclast historian who immerses himself in the primary sources more thoroughly than any other Western scholar of 20th-century China. . . [an] invaluable book.” ―The Wall Street Journal-------------------------------- “Frank Dikötter dismantles CCP myths about Mao's leadership to tell a story of Chinese repression that is still relevant today . . . Dikötter succeeds at bringing these different strands together in a highly readable narrative that challenges the foundational myths of the CCP. . . The book is also a valuable reminder that today's China - the prosperous, technologically advanced superpower - is a country built on a foundation of violence. . . A tireless chronicler of the numerous crimes and follies of Chinese communism, Dikötter once again shows his readers who was pulling the trigger of that gun, and at what cost to the long-suffering Chinese people.” ―Sergey Radchenko, Financial Times-------------------------------- “With extraordinary analytical skill, Frank Dikötter has opened up the real story of the Chinese Communist Party's origin. Anyone interested in the future of the People's Republic of China should first study its past, and reading Red Dawn Over China is the best way to start.” ―H.R. McMaster, author of DERELICTION OF DUTY, BATTLEGROUNDS, and AT WAR WITH OURSELVES-------------------------------- “Frank Dikötter has rewritten the early history of the Chinese Communist Party from the ground up. Drawing on archival materials long thought inaccessible, he strips away decades of myth to reveal a story of improvisation, violence and opportunism. Written with precision and verve, Red Dawn Over China is the most important reappraisal of modern China to appear in years.” ―Peter Frankopan, author of THE SILK ROADS-------------------------------- “Delving into the little-known details behind China's Communist rise, this gripping, eye-opening exploration reveals the key steps that led to a world-changing victory.” ―Barnes & Noble Reads-------------------------------- “The writing of history belongs to the victors, so it is no surprise that for decades after the Communist Party of China came to power, in 1949, Mao Zedong was seen as the revered ideologue, and the man he overthrew, Chiang Kai-shek, as a corrupt Fascist forced to flee to Taiwan. What Frank Dikötter has done, elegantly and persuasively, is to blow up that myth and demonstrate, thanks to troves of official records, that beginning with its birth in 1921, the party was not so much a popular force as a cruel and poorly led one that never would have survived without Russia's help or its own inhumane tactics. The C.P.C. has always had a fat streak of paranoia, and though this exceptional history ends in 1949, one cannot help wonder if, as he purges his top-ranked generals, Xi Jinping is not succumbing to that streak.” ―Air Mail, Editor's Pick-------------------------------- “An account of the surprising realities behind the Communist party's rise in China, from years of plundered villages and minimal popular support to survival under Japanese occupation. Dikötter, an acclaimed historian of China, traces how, with Soviet backing and relentless determination, a marginal movement became a world force.” ―Financial Times, "What to Read in 2026"-------------------------------- “[Dikötter] turns to new archival sources to reappraise the story of modern China and highlight the role of the Soviet Union in the Chinese Communist Party's rise.” ―Foreign Policy-------------------------------- “A blow-by-blow account . . . An important corrective to the conventional view of China's rise.” ―Financial Times on CHINA AFTER MAO-------------------------------- “Iconoclastic.” ―Wall Street Journal on CHINA AFTER MAO-------------------------------- “[An] anatomy of authoritarianism . . . Dikötter's originality is that he counts crimes against civilization alongside crimes against humanity.” ―The New Yorker on HOW TO BE A DICTATOR-------------------------------- “Pathbreaking . . . a first-class piece of research.” ―New York Review of Books on MAO'S GREAT FAMINE-------------------------------- “A mesmerizing account of the communist revolution in China, and the subsequent transformation of hundreds of millions of lives through violence, coercion and broken promises . . . essential.” ―Anne Applebaum on THE TRAGEDY OF LIBERATION