China and Orientalism

5 DeLillo, Warhol, and the specterof Mao

The “Sinologization” of global thought

The previous chapter examined a Cold War-colonial production of knowledge about the Mao era in general and the Great Leap Forward in particular. Of particular importance is not just the enumerative modality in general, but more specifically the work of American demographers and the British Indian, Nobel Laureate Sen in propagating a regime of truth about Mao and the famine of 1959-61. This is all to say, then, that this coding is indeed a global phenomenon and not limited to China experts. Given the long-standing importance of China to twentieth-century politics as well as the global influence of Maoism itself, from South Asia to Latin America and beyond, it is to ...