Law and legality in China

Fr Laszlo Ladany, SJ, published only one book in his lifetime (The Communist Party of China and Marxism, 1921-1985: A Self-Portrait), but became widely known and respected as the doyen of 'China-watchers' through his editorship of China News Analysis in Hong Kong in 1953-82. On his death in 1990 he left this survey, simply expressed but revealing on every page the depth of his knowledge of the Chinese people and of Chinese and comparative legal history, one of his own earlier special subjects of study. His ultimate concern is to illustrate the antipathy of Mao Tse-tung to law, even in a form renewed according to Marxist doctrine, and to age-old customary Chinese concepts of acceptable behaviour: this created a mental and spiritual void in a whole generation of Chinese with possibly irreversible and certainly unpredictable consequences. The book is a deeply thought-provoking introduction to the study of Chinese history, politics and culture. Two distinguished German sinologists, Professor Jurgen Domes and Dr Marie-Luise Nath, have, between them, edited the work and provided short opening and concluding sections.