The book “Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine” written by British journalist Jasper Becker in 1996 is the first book historical story which describes in detail the famine in China which took place between 1958 and 1962. Jasper Becker gathered the details of this catastrophe from people who survived this famine from all over the world, thus recreating the image of this period and filling the gaps in modern history. from China. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"?Get the original essayThe "Great Leap Forward" is the duplication of Stalin's collectivization in the Soviet Union. Chinese President Mao Zedong, influenced by the Soviet Union and passionate about Marxist-Leninist ideology, wanted to be the first to build a communist society and believed that with this program he would overtake Britain within 2 years. However, Mao's acolytes were afraid to tell the truth about the failure of this program, as all the information was faked. Even when Mao was informed of the mass famine, he refused to believe it. As a result, approximately thirty million Chinese peasants died of starvation (Becker 1996, xi). Chapter 5, “False Science, False Promises,” is devoted to Mao's utopian proclamations of a bright future, communist propaganda, falsification of figures, and the adoption of ideas from the Soviet Union. In order to better explain the events that took place in China, Jasper Becker reviews the theories of Russian pseudo-scientists: Trofim Lysenko, Ivan Michurin and Vasily Williams. First, he discusses the failures of the Soviet Union resulting from the ideas of these pseudo-scientists. Then he turns to China, where he talks about the adoption of these ideas. It turns out that the failures of the Soviet Union did not stop Mao from implementing them. He was too preoccupied with his idea of ​​creating a new society, so instead of acting rationally, he thought they could rewrite the laws of nature by implementing the ideas of these pseudo-scientists. Chinese universities were based on Soviet style, they followed Soviet and manual methods, meanwhile Western scientists were taken to prison. The classes were devoted to Michurin's hybrid theories, students crossed different species in order to obtain larger and more productive hybrids. Furthermore, Mao constituted an "eight-point Lysenkoist", which became a blueprint for all Chinese peasants. Each point was examined in detail. The first element is entitled “The popularization of new breeds and seeds”. Here the author again discusses the falsified results resulting from the hybridization of different species, the production of "extraordinary animals" and "super-large plants". The most surprising thing was that Mao's supporters thought they could breed pigeons prematurely. Since all the real scientists were arrested, they used ideas without any scientific proof. They did whatever came to mind. So, it not only affected human beings but also animals. Through this we can get a real idea of ​​the times, they were fanatics who did not want to accept failures. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay To conclude, Jasper Becker's work has contributed a lot to the history of not only China, but also the world. The only weakness that can be pointed out is that he mainly used eyewitness accounts, which might not be accurate, in order to be able to..