Content area
Full Text
DENG XIAOPING: Chronicle of an Empire. By Ruan Ming. Translated and edited by Nancy Liu, Peter Rand and Lawrence R. Sullivan. Boulder (Colorado): Westview Press. 1994. xxi, 288 pp. US$69.95, cloth, ISBN O-8133-1920-X; US$19.95, paper, ISBN 0-8133-1921-8.
THIS IS AN ANGRY ETHNOGRAPHY of high-level Chinese politics written by the exiled brother-in-law of a former minister of public security. Readers who appreciate good style and a modicum of impartiality will be disappointed. The author rarely invokes the names of Chen Yun and other dying or retired hardliners without appending to them epithets like "thug proletarian," "intellectual flunkie," or "henchman." China's current leadership is dismissed as simply "a bunch of incompetent individuals" (p....