China's Real Historians

In the face of government repression and censorship, a number of brave Chinese citizens -- some are activists, others ordinary folks -- are using basic technologies to disseminate the truth about the country's history. Since taking power in 2013, President Xi Jinping outlawed criticism of Mao and rewrote China's modern history to erase the Communist Party's sordid record from the Great Leap Forward to Tiananmen Square and beyond. In this episode, journalist Ian Johnson discusses how the "underground historians" are fighting for China's future by accurately portraying the past.

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Learn how the past shapes the present with the best historians in the world. Everything happening today comes from something, somewhere, so let's start thinking historically about current events. History As It Happens, with new episodes every Tuesday and Friday, features interviews with today's top scholars and thinkers, interwoven with audio from history's archive.