Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1966 to purge his critics and blood a new generation of fighters. Ten years later, almost two million people had been killed and much of China's heritage, from precious manuscripts to ancient temples, had been obliterated.

The shadow of these terrible years lies heavily over the twenty-first-century nation. The history of this period is so toxic that China's rulers have gone to great lengths to bury it ? while a few brave men and women risk their freedom to uncover the truth. For as both they and the Party know, to grasp the history of the Cultural Revolution is to understand much about China today.