"Mao's last decade was as full of confusion and surprises as the 1790s in France. In size and complexity the Cultural Revolution was of course a much bigger event than the French Revolution. At any rate, it will be studied from many angles for a long time to come. Probably its most arresting feature in retrospect was its disastrous attack on learning and intellectuals in the very land that had exalted scholarship and invented civil service examinations thirteen hundred years before. In fact, the two were not unconnected—learning was attacked in China because it seemed to be so entrenched in the establishment. This historical circumstance makes the Cultural Revolution hard to understand without reference to history."