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I have removed below paragraph but it has been replaced. For now I have deleted it again.
Dikötter stressed the benefits of opium smoking in Patient Zero and called for the rehabilitation of Republican China under Chiang Kai-shek in The Age of Openness, and generally presents the Chinese Communist Revolution as a scene of unrelenting terror, repression, and statism.[4][5]
I believe the above are very poorly worded statements (mainly as quoting out of context) about Dikötters work.
His main point in book like Patient Zero is that British prohibition of opium was the real menace to Chinese society in the late 19th century, and that the effects of opium were - especially before prohibition - relatively benign and even culturally relevant. There is an image of a China paralyzed by opium, which is what Dikötter is trying to replace here. How one can think that this is best described as 'Dikötter stressed the benefits of opium smoking', which makes him look primarily like an advocate of drug use instead of an historian, is beyond me.
The second part of the paragraph is about the 'rehabilitation of Republican China under Chiang Kai-shek'. The problem here is the word 'rehabilitation', it has a double meaning: 1) to restore to former status 2) to restore the good name. I think the latter is what is meant here, although the former could easily be understood. So even though The Age of Openness is about changing public perception of Republic China (which is generally perceived as terrible, just waiting for revolution), writing that Dikötter wants to rehabilitate it, is a poor choice of words.
Most would argue nowadays that early Communist China was a 'a scene of unrelenting terror, repression, and statism'. To write that Dikötter presents it as such is either rather meaningless, or would imply that it was - in actuality - not a place like that (which seems too value laden for Wikipedia). So again, poorly worded.
I do not mind trying my hand at a rewrite. But I would like to have made the above clear in advance.
Bas van Leeuwen ( talk) 05:34, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
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This seems rather biased. Which other academics have even reviewed or discussed Patient Zero? Kathleen L Lodwick, having written “Crusaders Against Opium: Protestant Missionaries in China, 1874-1917” in 1996, clearly would disagree with the thesis in “Patient Zero”. Does her opinion result the sum of academia? 2601:441:8380:E420:0:0:0:2A5D ( talk) 02:38, 3 August 2022 (UTC)