The Man Who Stayed Behind

The Man Who Stayed Behind hooked me from start to finish. These are rare, tragic, sometimes startling insights into Maos China at its self-destructive worst. Whether you sympathize with Sidney Rittenberg or not (and there will be times when you have doubts) he was there as history was made and unmade, and became part of its scar tissue. His prison portrait of Madame Mao as the shrieking harridan of the Red Terror will stay with me a long time. And his own personal story is an amazing tale in its own right.Sterling Seagrave, author of The Soong Dynasty A gripping story about an idealistic young American who freely cast his lot with the Chinese revolution only to be struck down by that revolution at the floodtide of its success. . . . One lives with him through inhuman cruelty and the mindless horror of sixteen years of solitary confinement.Leonard Woodcock, First American Ambassador to China An extraordinary and revealing account of how someone was swept into the Chinese Communist movement and stayed with it through its many blunders, excesses, and cruelties. . . . A fascinating autobiographyhonest, moving, chilling, and quite illuminating.Dr. Michel Oksenberg, Former National Security Council Aid on China Policy I found The Man Who Stayed Behind hard to put down. No American has ever merged as fully, hopefullyand disastrouslywith Communist China as Rittenberg did for four decades from the 1940s. The book is lively, poignant, and revealing. Rittenberg offers a window on Beijing politics that anyone seriously interested in Chinas recent past and likely future should read.Ross Terrill, author of China in Our Time Sidney Rittenberg has had one of the most remarkable lives of anyone I have ever met. The story of his life is not only a fascinating and valuable witness to one of the greatest historical upheavals of [the twentieth] century, but is a vivid testimony to the power of good in the midst of evil.Billy Graham [The Man Who Stayed Behind] reads like a riveting historical novel. But theres no fiction here . . . its Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, the Long March, solitary confinement, despair, romance, and redemption. Sidney Rittenbergs story is a classic.Mike Wallace, CBS-TV 60 Minutes

Sidney Rittenberg is President of Rittenberg Associates, Incorporateda China consulting firm. He resides on Fox Island, Washington, with his wife, Yulin. Amanda Bennett is Managing Editor of The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon and former Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal in Atlanta.

Notes on Spelling and Pronunciation Map Introduction / Michael Hunt Key Names 1. The Death of the Wood Fairy 2. The Famine 3. The New Fourth Army 4. In Maos Caves 5. High Autumn and Bracing Weather 6. My Long March 7. The Year of Darkness 8. Learning to Live 9. The Brave New World 10. Redder Than Red 11. The Golden Age 12. A Leap in the Dark 13. The Great Hunger 14. The Inner Circle 15. The Good Life 16. Arouse the Masses 17. Smash Everything Old 18. Seize Power 19. Hold Power 20. Power Prevails 21. The Ice House 22. The Dynasty Collapses 23. Coming Home Epilogue Acknowledgments Index