Between 1958 and 1962, Mao Zedong embarked on a mad and brutal scheme to transform the Chinese economy through forced collectivization—the so-called Great Leap Forward. Historian Frank Dikötter called the ensuing disaster one of the “most deadly mass killings in human history,” estimating that over 45 million Chinese died as a result. And yet few people outside of China are aware of Mao’s greatest crime. For his new book Forgotten Voices of Mao’s Great Famine (Yale University Press), historian Zhou Xun travelled through the Chinese countryside collecting first-hand accounts from the forgotten victims of a forgotten genocide. Read article which includes excerpts from book here.