Julian Gewirtz. Never Turn Back: China and the Forbidden History of the 1980s. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2022. vi + 418 pages. Hardcover, $32.95.

Most have heard of some event being recast, distorted, or forgotten by history. What if an entire decade can be scrubbed from mass memory? This book details Chinese history during the 1980s from several angles, finding that it was a period in which debates over modernization fostered experimentation, discussion of alternative scenarios, tolerance, and frequent consultation with foreign officials. However, it also depicts the brutal June 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and how Chinese authorities used that atrocity to "rectify" the past.

Author Julian Gewirtz has extensive academic and political background on the topic. He earned his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2018, and his dissertation and two subsequent books have focused on China. Additionally, he has served as Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations; has taught history at both Columbia University and Harvard University; and currently is China Director on the U.S. National Security Council.

The text of the book is divided into six parts encompassing fourteen chapters; it likewise contains an introductory section and conclusion. In the Introduction, Gewirtz identifies the impressive array of primary sources which he tapped to research the subject, including memoirs, oral histories, propaganda and censorship directives, and internal documents such as briefings. Utilizing this information, he exposed the secrecy in which 1980s leadership discussions took place.

Whereas the Introduction takes the reader to the present period dominated by Xi Jinping--in which the mythical "Chinese model" is promoted--Chapter 1 retreats to the post-Mao Zedong era when Deng Xiaoping came to power. In late March 1979, Deng announced the Four Cardinal Principles guiding modernization. Later, he led a move to pardon previous Communist party officials who had been sidelined during the Cultural Revolution. Part I, covering two chapters, demonstrates how ideology influenced events during the 1980s. Despite the openness of that decade, Deng and other party officials ordered arrests for economic crimes, cracked down on the "spiritual pollution" of Western culture, monitored campus unrest, and replaced officials who would not adhere to ideological dictates.

Parts II and III of the text deal with China's economic modernization and technological advancements during the 1980s. Labeled the "readjustment" era of economic development, the 1980s saw China's leaders seek gradual...