-This book chronicles the massive loss of life in China due to non-natural causes during the twentieth century. Drawing almost entirely on Western language secondary sources, it attempts to estimate the number of lives lost in each of the major areas of China's recent history due to political murder, as opposed to deaths from warfare or natural causes.... His monograph is not the work of an ideologue.... [I]t does a good job of pulling together a very disparate literature on political murder in China.-
--Richard E. Barrett, The Journal of Asian Studies
-Rummel's data sufficiently prove his basic point: 'Power kills, and absolute power kills en masse'. At a time when some governments, the Chinese prominent among them, argue that there is an Asian (or African, or Middle Eastern) concept of human rights, that political rights are not urgently needed by poor people, and that democracy is detrimental to development, his findings deserve to be at the centre of debate.-
--Andrew J. Nathan, the Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs
"This book chronicles the massive loss of life in China due to non-natural causes during the twentieth century. Drawing almost entirely on Western language secondary sources, it attempts to estimate the number of lives lost in each of the major areas of China's recent history due to political murder, as opposed to deaths from warfare or natural causes.... His monograph is not the work of an ideologue.... [I]t does a good job of pulling together a very disparate literature on political murder in China."
--Richard E. Barrett, The Journal of Asian Studies
"Rummel's data sufficiently prove his basic point: 'Power kills, and absolute power kills en masse'. At a time when some governments, the Chinese prominent among them, argue that there is an Asian (or African, or Middle Eastern) concept of human rights, that political rights are not urgently needed by poor people, and that democracy is detrimental to development, his findings deserve to be at the centre of debate."
--Andrew J. Nathan, the Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs
"This book chronicles the massive loss of life in China due to non-natural causes during the twentieth century. Drawing almost entirely on Western language secondary sources, it attempts to estimate the number of lives lost in each of the major areas of China's recent history due to political murder, as opposed to deaths from warfare or natural causes.... His monograph is not the work of an ideologue.... [I]t does a good job of pulling together a very disparate literature on political murder in China."
--Richard E. Barrett, The Journal of Asian Studies
"Rummel's data sufficiently prove his basic point: 'Power kills, and absolute power kills en masse'. At a time when some governments, the Chinese prominent among them, argue that there is an Asian (or African, or Middle Eastern) concept of human rights, that political rights are not urgently needed by poor people, and that democracy is detrimental to development, his findings deserve to be at the centre of debate."
--Andrew J. Nathan, the Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs
"This book chronicles the massive loss of life in China due to non-natural causes during the twentieth century. Drawing almost entirely on Western language secondary sources, it attempts to estimate the number of lives lost in each of the major areas of China's recent history due to political murder, as opposed to deaths from warfare or natural causes.... His monograph is not the work of an ideologue.... [I]t does a good job of pulling together a very disparate literature on political murder in China."
--Richard E. Barrett, The Journal of Asian Studies