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Deng Xiaoping: Portrait of a Chinese Statesman. Edited by David Shambaugh. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. 172p. $16.95 paper.
Contemporary Chinese politics can be divided primarily into two periods: the era of Mao Zedong from 1949 to 1976 and the era of Deng Xiaoping from 1978 to the present (with a transitional interval from 1976 to 1978). Any thorough examination of Mao and Deng, the two paramount Communist leaders, will enhance our understanding of post-1949 Chinese politics. A year after the death of Mao, Dick Wilson (1977) edited a book entitled Mao Tse-tung in the Scales of History: A Preliminary Assessment, evaluating Mao's legacies in contemporary China and world affairs. Now with Deng in his 90s and China moving toward the post-Deng era, the book under review will undoubtedly make a timely and welcome contribution not only to our comprehension of Deng Xiaoping as an individual leader but also China's development in the most recent (and still current) era, the era of Deng, and will remain useful to our research and teaching of China and to the field of comparative politics.
Initially published in the China Quarterly as a group of essays, this book consists of seven articles and an introduction written by well-known sinologists. The division of labor among the authors in their examinations of Deng Xiaoping are: the political culture perspective (Lucian Pye), Deng's biography in the pre-1949 period (Benjamin Yang), the political dimension (David Shambaugh), economic affairs (Barry Naughton), social reforms (Martin Whyte), the military dimension (June Dreyer), and foreign policy issues (Michael Yahuda).
Although they examine different subject areas, there are at least three common elements among these articles. First, in order to make an overall assessment of Deng Xiaoping's career since he became China's paramount leader in 1978, each chapter more or less traces back to Deng's early experience in the Mao era or even to the pre-1949 period. Several authors also discuss Deng's personal character. For example, in his study of Deng's unique role in contemporary Chinese politics, renowned China watcher Lucian Pye presents a powerful and penetrating analysis of Deng from the perspective of political culture and political psychology, thereby advancing our knowledge of Deng as...