The book "Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine" written by the British journalist Jasper Becker in 1996 is the first historical book that describes in describes detailing the famine in China that occurred between 1958 and 1962. Jasper Becker collected the details of this catastrophe from people who survived this famine from all over the world, thus recreating the image of that time period and filling in the gaps in history modern China. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The “Great Leap Forward” is the duplication of Stalin's collectivization in the Soviet Union. Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong, influenced by the Soviet Union and crazy about Marxist-Leninist ideology, wanted to be the first to build a communist society and believed that with this program he would surpass Great Britain in two years. However, Mao's acolytes were afraid to tell the truth about the failure of this program, all the information was false. Even when Mao was told about mass starvation, he refused to believe it. As a result, approximately thirty million Chinese peasants starved to death (Becker 1996, xi). Chapter 5, “False Science, False Promises,” is devoted to Mao's utopian proclamations about a bright future, communist propaganda, falsification of figures, and the adoption of the ideas of the Soviet Union. To better explain the events that occurred 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 those pseudo-scientists. Then we talk about China, here we talk about the adoption of those ideas. It turns out that the failures of the Soviet Union did not prevent Mao from implementing them. He was too concerned with his idea of ​​creating a new society, so instead of acting rationally, he thought that they could rewrite the Law of Nature by implementing the ideas of those pseudo-scientists. Universities in China were based on Soviet style, followed Soviet methods and textbook, meanwhile Western scientists were taken to prison. Michurin's hybrid theories were propagated in the lessons, students crossed different species to obtain larger and higher yielding hybrids. Furthermore, Mao established an “Eight-Point Lysenkoist,” which became a blueprint for all Chinese peasants. Every point has been examined in detail. The first element is called “The popularization of new breeds and seeds”. Here the author again discusses the falsified results that arise from the hybridization of different species, the production of "extraordinary animals" and "super large plants". The most surprising thing is that Mao's supporters believed that they could breed pigeons prematurely. Since all the real scientists were arrested, they used ideas without any scientific proof. They did everything they could think of. Therefore, it not only affected humans but also animals. This way we can have a real picture of the era, they were fanatics who did not want to accept failures. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper 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 the world. The only weakness that can be pointed out is that he basically used eyewitness narratives, which may not be accurate, so he could strengthen his arguments by using more official documents from the time..