If you really want to know more about China, beside the economic development datas and political commentaries, read it.
Just a remark: I did not give it a five-star rating (the content deserves it all) because the translation to English is sometimes "imaginative" (well, in a sense that makes it more Chinese, sounds like some pages of China Daily)


rich, varied content if you can put aside the author's tone   August 23, 1998
The narratives in this collection of oral histories about the Cultural Revolution are varied , well-ordered, and of a good length. Feng includes victims, perpetrators, "non-participants." Particularly fascinating/ horrifying is the chapter about the infamous #63 torture block. The author also includes some striking, though possibly one-sided, interviews with people born post-1976. Feng himself seems to have a bit of a saviour complex, and his commentary struck me as overdone and interfering - particularly the trite maxims he insists on including after each narrative. He is most interesting in the interview at the end of the book, during which he discusses his methodology and "Documentary Literature".

Chihua Wen's oral histories of children during the Cultural Revolution (The Red Mirror) is less varied, but has a lighter touch, and therefore comes off as more richly poetic. Cheng Jung's Wild Swans is a good companion to these oral history style books, as it offers a detailed and incisive analysis along with its personal story. Ten Years of Madness is a good collection of narratives, but I wish Feng's commentary had been more analytical and less Holy.