Never Turn Back

A vivid and readable account of the period from Mao's death until shortly after Tiananmen, with a focus on the role of Zhao [Ziyang]...It is easy to see why Gewirtz believes that had Zhao stayed in power, he would have fundamentally changed China...Exceptionally well-researched. -- Andrew J. Nathan * Foreign Affairs * A richly researched addition to this literature, enhanced by access to internal Chinese documents and interviews with former officials and intellectuals active at the time. * Economist * A gift to our understanding of today's China. Gewirtz has brilliantly, vividly revealed a hidden history of elite debate over the defining question of modern China: could it ever be both rich and free? This eye-opening examination of China's tortured relationship with reform repairs our understanding of the 1980s and gives us a powerful lens through which to glimpse the future. -- Evan Osnos, author of the National Book Award-winning <i>Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China</i> The decade of the 1980s was one of the most transformative in modern China's history. Yet the story we know about it leaves out a key figure: top Communist leader Zhao Ziyang. Showing how Zhao was crucial to the most important decisions of the time, Gewirtz fundamentally changes our understanding of this period, forcing us to rethink an era that continues to shape our world. -- Rana Mitter, author of <i>China's Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism</i> In my judgment, this is the definitive book on China in the 1980s in terms of the depth of research and originality of the argument. It is also elegantly written and a pleasure to read. Gewirtz debunks the official narrative constructed by the Chinese Communist Party that has erased the critical contributions made by Zhao Ziyang, the reformist leader purged during the 1989 Tiananmen crisis. -- Minxin Pei, author of <i>China's Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime Decay</i> I lived in 1980s China and covered it for the New York Times, yet I learned so much from Gewirtz's outstanding, brilliantly researched book about the infighting in that period that resulted in the brutal suppression of the Tiananmen democracy movement. Many of those Chinese debates of the 1980s about political and economic reform persist today in Beijing and will determine the country's future-and that's why this book is so important. -- Nicholas D. Kristof, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and coauthor of <i>A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity</i> An enormously important book on how the People's Republic became the China we know today. Gewirtz not only presents the alternatives to repression and conformity; he explains why the panoply of pluralistic thinking, so rich and vibrant after the death of Mao's revolution, was destroyed by senior Communist leaders during the 1980s. -- Odd Arne Westad, author of <i>The Cold War: A World History</i> A bold and innovative argument about one of the most important policy debates of our time: how China doubled down on autocracy while still developing into an economic and technological superpower. Gewirtz shows how this history was not an inevitable straight line from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping, but was filled with twists and turns. For those seeking to understand China's rise today, this book is essential reading. -- Michael McFaul, author of <i>From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin's Russia</i>