Is the failure of communism in China inevitable? So argue the authors of China and the Crisis of Marxism-Leninism, who believe that Mao’s programs were utopian fantasies that greatly aggravated the incurable flaws of the Stalinist order, now eroding worldwide. At the time of the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 China was in a state of disarray, and the new leadership believed that only drastic economic and institutional reforms could salvage the communist order. Thus, Deng Xiaoping, without abandoning Marx’s value system nor Lenin’s totalitarianism, introduced a reform program that outlined...

Past studies of China have concentrated on specific events or have related a chronological history of the dynastic periods. These works have included aspects of cultural history but have underemphasized the country's great social, political, and intellectual movements and their ultimate expression in the art and literature of the time. By focusing on such themes, Professor Michael provides a new framework for understanding the Chinese cultural tradition. The author describes the evolving history of ideas in China, from ancient faith in powerful magic to more modern concepts of a logical moral...

The 1959 Chinese military takeover of Tibet brought an end to a unique way of life in which Buddhism provided legitimacy to political and social authority in Tibet and served as value system, cultural bond, philosophy of life, and framework for a complex political and social order. The religious-political system of Tibet now exists only in the memories of those who experienced it. This book documents the human heritage and cultural traditions of Tibet's singular society as they developed and existed during a period of several hundred years. Using Max Weber's framework of the interrelationship...