The Great Leap Forward (GLF) is a key event in China's history and is associated not only with Herculean efforts of social engineering, but also the starvation of tens of millions of peasants. Unlike scholars past and present who have studied this horrific episode in China's contemporary history from the vantage points of actors, institutions and outcomes, Wemheuer is less interested in the extent of the catastrophe and whose fault it was. Rather, the aim of his study is to find out how this event is officially explained, whether this explanation is challenged at lower levels of the administrative hierarchy, and how it conflicts with, or is integrated into, the memories of the survivors. Wemheuer rightly asserts that this is no small matter, because historical correctness is an important element of socialist legitimation.

The central government's official position on this matter is of course well known. The 1981 “Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China” admits “serious losses to our country and our people” in the course of an otherwise successful policy and puts the blame on “left errors,” natural disasters and the withdrawal of Soviet support. The fact that tens of millions of lives were lost due to starvation and, as Wemheuer points out, the systematic killing of peasants who tried to flee their villages, is of course not made clear in the official narrative.

Wemheuer's analysis relies on a number of sources, the most unique of which undoubtedly are more than 20 interviews with contemporary witnesses of the famine such as former brigade heads, village intellectuals and peasants. The interviews reveal a deep schism between the horrific memories of suffering and loss narrated by the peasants and the central government's position that mistakes were made, albeit in good faith. They also illustrate that, consciously or unconsciously, perpetrators and victims at the time have decided to lay the matter to rest, possibly in order to not jeopardize the functioning of the village communities. While the peasants seem to hold no grudge and display a fatalistic attitude towards their ordeals, the erstwhile cadres are without remorse. They frankly admit that they abused their position to embezzle food rations and, as one interviewee put it, force the peasants to “work like slaves.” Finally, the interviews make clear that the peasants have in no way appropriated the central government's authoritative narratives of the GLF.

The same cannot be said for coming to terms with the past at lower levels of government. In order to probe the influence of the central government's authoritative explanation of the 1958–60 famine on provincial and sub-provincial historiography, Wemheuer interviewed Party historians in Henan Province, which spearheaded the GLF and was one of the provinces with very high death rates. Particular attention is paid to the official evaluation of hard-line Party secretary Wu Zhipu, whom Wemheuer makes responsible for the Xinyang Incident, which with 2.4 million casualties was the “largest mass murder in the GLF” (p. 78). Wu was responsible not only for a witch-hunt against alleged rightists and the radical communalization of private property, but also backed Lu Xianwen, the leader of Xinyang region, in his reign of terror against the peasantry. Despite his clear responsibility for millions of deaths, Wu was not punished. Although some local cadres and historians strongly criticize Wu in non-official publications and demand an official re-evaluation of his leadership, Wu is still portrayed rather favourably in the provincial almanacs.

Wemheuer's analysis of the official historiography of the Great Leap famine is completed with an examination of three Henan counties, one of which is situated in the former Xinyang region. Examining low-classified archival material, county almanacs and local newspapers, he finds that “issues of vital importance to the peasants were by no means the central concern of the county bureaucracy” (p. 156): the recordings were more concerned with central policies and their local implementation than with the peasants' struggle for survival. Thus, central and local historiography display remarkable consistency, but official history and peasant memories are very much at odds, testifying to the distance between state and society in China.

Wemheuer's book is an essential read for all those interested in the historiography of the CCP, the GLF, and the history of central–local relations in China more generally. He provides valuable and convincing insights into the dynamics of the Great Leap famine in Henan, how this traumatic event is reflected in the official history at all administrative levels, how it is challenged by former local cadres as well as historians, and how local perpetrators and victims remember the event and pass on their memories to future generations.

The only downsides in this excellent read are the insufficient structuring of the interviews and the lack of an adequate conclusion. As to the former, Wemheuer reproduces his respondents' answers faithfully even where they are at best marginally related to the questions and periods covered in the book. While this admittedly illustrates how individual memories are structured in rural China, it would have been enough to remark that the respondents sometimes confuse places and times or prefer to talk about other topics. As to the second point, the book lacks a conclusion that systematically evaluates the author's findings against the theories of “collective memory and government” underlying the analysis. The brief comparison between famine and memory in China and Ukraine presented instead appears slightly out of place in this otherwise very coherent volume. These small points are perhaps a matter of personal taste and do not lessen the value of this very fine piece of work.