The Communist Party of China (CPC) is one of the great political forces of modern times. In charge of the destiny of a fifth of humanity, it survives despite the collapse of similar systems elsewhere. Few, however, understand the sources of this resilience, or, for that matter, what the Party itself stands for. China's Dream is the first book to explore the Communist Party as a cultural, rather than a political, entity. It looks at the narratives the Party has created to recount its own history, with the moral story about national rejuvenation and renaissance that these encode. It does not shy away from the thorny issue of how a Party under Mao Zedong, one associated with self-sacrifice, collectivist effort, and anti-individualism, came to pragmatically embrace market capitalism and a new ethics. The tensions to which this gives rise have resulted in a crisis of values, which is now being addressed - with very mixed results - by the CPC. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of contemporary China, Kerry Brown takes us on a unique and fascinating journey through the least understood aspect of China today - not the great economic revolution in the material world, but the deep cultural revolution already underway in Chinese people's daily lives.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Intro; Table of Contents; Dedication; Title page; Copyright page; Chronology; Abbreviations; Preface; Acknowledgements; About the Author; Introduction; Notes;
• 1: Redemption from the Dark Past; Reappraisals of History: The Two Iterations; Notes;
• 2: Winning the Historic Mission; Telling the China Story: The Party as Hero; The Return of the Storytellers; Using the Past to Serve the Present; Notes;
• 3: Being a Good Chinese Communist; The Fall of the Party Cadre: The Anti-Corruption Struggle; Moral Reboot: Going for Loyalty; Notes;
• 4: Back to Basics; Remaking People: Maoist Morality and the Great Cultural Revolution;
• 1978: The Moral Impact of the Reform Era; Liu Xiaobo and the Moral Critique of Contemporary China; The Fat Years: China Out of Control; The Party Rescues Itself; Welcome to Deep China; Deep China and the Deep Past; Written on Water: The Sustainability of the CPC's Moral Fightback; Notes;
• 5: The Drama of Ideas; The Ideological Narrative: The Origins of Plenitude in Contradiction; Putting Ideas into Practice: Ideology, Action, and the Maoist System; The Narratives of Chinese Communist Ideology; Notes;
• 6: The Ideological Fightback under Xi; The Great Warning: The Collapse of the Soviet Union; The Resurrection of Party Building, Culture, and Belief: The Years of Xi Jinping; Xi's Keywords; Ideology: Final Words; Notes;
• 7: The Aesthetics of the Party; The Maoist Attitude to Art; Mao's Vision of Art in Practice; Maoist Aesthetics in Action: The Cultural Revolution as Theatre; The Party's Aesthetics after 1978; The 2008 Olympic Carnival; Xi Jinping and the New Yan'an; Xi's Politics: The Party as a Vessel for Emotions; Notes; Conclusion; Notes; Suggested Readings; Index; End User License Agreement.