One of the most anticipated books of 2026 according to Financial Times and Foreign Policy magazine.
One of the best books of February 2026 according to the Barnes & Noble Reads website.
The history of modern China has long been portrayed as a story of communists struggling in the mountains for freedom, gradually winning broad popular support by seizing the land of the rich and giving it to the poor. Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Red Dawn over China reveals just how difficult the Party's victory wasWithout the financial and military support from the Soviet Union.
The Communist Party was founded in 1921 under the direct guidance of Moscow, and over the course of nearly a decade, it left a trail of massive devastation, besieging cities and plundering the countryside.
When the Communists gained control of the lands, they subjected the villagers to a state of servitude, undermining faith in their cause and the local economy. By 1936, they were no longer as popular as an obscure religious sect.Japan's brutal war of occupation allowed them to survive far from enemy lines. After Soviet forces invaded Manchuria in 1945 and provided more money and munitions, the Communists finally prevailed through a relentless war of attrition, driven by an unrelenting will to conquer at all costs.In this gripping tale, told in a brilliant narrative style, Frank Dikötter reveals how thirteen delegates gathered in a dusty room in 1921 ended up raising the red flag over the Forbidden City in 1949, forever changing the course of history for a quarter of humanity and shaping the world as we know it today.
