When Mao Zedong, China’s ‘great helmsman’ died in 1976, the China that emerged after destructive reign began to be de-Maoified economically but also culturally. By the early 1980s a cutlure of Mao criticism was prevalent in the arts, television and cinema, along with critiques of the Mao era communist party. This podcast examines the processes of De-Maoification and how China changed throughout the 1980s, and the significance of this in the 21st Century. Explaining History helps you understand t
Reading time:
1–2 minutes
Explaining History Podcast
For more than a decade, the Explaining History Podcast has helped listeners around the world make sense of modern history. What began in 2012 as a simple experiment—short, accessible episodes explaining major historical events—has grown into a long-running library of carefully researched, thoughtful explorations of the 20th and 21st centuries.
If this was useful, there’s more where it came from.
Every week I publish one piece connecting a current event to its historical roots — free, every Tuesday. Paid subscribers get two additional deeper dives and full archive access.
Subscribe to Explaining History →