The historian Frank Dikötter has been Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong since 2006, and is the author of the People’s Trilogy, a series of books documenting the development of communist China between 1949 and 1976. Born in the Netherlands and educated in Switzerland, he began his career at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he became Professor of the Modern History of China. His most recent book, China After Mao (2022) traces the development of modern China from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping.
Frank Dikötter.Illustration by Kate Copeland
Q: When you set out to write your book on the Great Leap Forward, which was published in 2010, was it your intention to cover, as you have done in your last four books, the entire history of the CCP era?
A: No. I have a few basic principles in mind when it comes to historical research. One principle is that primary sources must be primary and secondary sources must be secondary.
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