In her marvelously lucid, drily witty, and extremely insightful [book]…Prof. Merle Goldman guides us campaign by campaign through the murky waters of…Chinese history, carefully pointing out at every turn the ways in which the political and intellectual realms (separable in theory but not in practice in contemporary China) have been related to one another… A truly masterful treatment of a complex and important subject.
-- Boston Globe

Fascinating… Goldman does a superb job of unraveling the tangled skein of political intrigue to show how ostensibly academic discussions among writers, philosophers, and historians actually have been political debates on the question, Whither China? …Goldman’s book will undoubtedly find the wide audience it deserves as a first-class treatment of a complex and important subject.
-- New Republic

An engrossing and powerfully documented analysis of the difficulties and dangers that Chinese writers experienced when they attempted to challenge Communist party orthodoxies.
-- New York Review of Books

As tightly organized, as clearly presented, and as carefully documented a history of the country’s slide into the Cultural Revolution as we are likely ever to read.
-- Wall Street Journal [Asian edition]

A highly valuable book… Her book touches issues of general and even universal concern. It deserves to be read by a wide audience.
-- American Historical Review