The second of Leys's trilogy on China's Cultural Revolution, describing the cultural and political upheaval under Mao's regime and expressing criticism of its Western supporters.

    Why did Mao Zedong launch the cultural revolution that almost destroyed all that he had worked so long and so hard to create? In his highly praised study-now a classic-Roderick MacFarquhar seeks to answer that question by examining the politics, economics, culture, and international relations of China from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s.

    

    The volume as a whole covers the subjects of alchemy, early chemistry, and chemical technology (which includes military invention, especially gunpowder and rockets; paper and printing; textiles; mining and metallurgy; the salt industry; and ceramics).

    

    Through many local chapters, its basic goal is to redirect the priorities of American science, away from "following the logic of profit." The organization grew out of a campus-based group formed to oppose classified war research, but later expanded its concern to such other areas as de-professionalizing science; developing materials for teaching science in a social-political context; providing critiques of present science curricula, methods, and school structure; and raising crucial women's issues within the scientific community.

    An eyewitness account of how the United States started on its disastrous course in the Far East, by a State Department "old China hand."