"In a word, was Mao too much a man of the 20th century to command much interest in the 21st? History records many singular recurrences of ideas and institutions, but Leninism and the Stalinist command economy, which so dominated the present century, do appear to have run their course. Modernization and economic development are another matter. While attention will no doubt continue to focus on the costs of development, perhaps only the rich can allow themselves to treat it as irrelevant. Thus, though Mao will probably not be remembered as the unerring architect of the future and the creator of a new world and a new humanity, a more modest place in history as a modernizing despot may well be his."