Modern Times: The World From The Twenties To The Nineties - Plot & Excerpts
Somewhat fuzzy photographs were published of what appeared to be his large round head bobbing in the water. Reports said he had swum nearly ten miles in just over sixty minutes and he was described as ‘radiant with vigour and in buoyant spirits’.1 This was merely one of the prodigies which appeared to have taken place in China in the quarter-century between Mao’s accession to power and his death in 1976. It was widely believed China was steadily overcoming the economic problems facing large, backward and heavily populated countries, and was doing so within the framework of an enthusiastic national consensus.Visitors returned fervent admirers of Mao’s brand of Communism. China, one of them wrote, was ‘a kind of benign monarchy ruled by an emperor-priest who had won the complete devotion of his subjects’. Its people, another predicted, would be ‘the incarnation of the new civilization of the world’. Simone de Beauvoir testified: ‘life in China today is exceptionally pleasant’.
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