[1][2][3] The book presents historical details together with author's analysis on a number of massacres which took place in mainland China during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976).

[3][4][6] Once a Red Guard himself during the Cultural Revolution, Song Yongyi, the author of the book, travelled to study in the United States in 1989.

[6][7] In August 1999, Song went back to mainland China to collect and research on materials regarding the Cultural Revolution, but was arrested and detained by the Chinese authorities and was accused of "stealing state secrets".

[4][6] In the preface of the book (Chinese edition), Hu Jiwei, former president and editor-in-chief of the People's Daily, praises Song's effort of exposing the historical facts and details of the atrocities during the Cultural Revolution to the public, and endorsed Song's argument that the massacres and violence were mainly the action of "state apparatuses" under Mao Zedong towards the citizens.

[2] Hu Ping (胡平), a Chinese writer, commented that many young people including some western scholars always thought that the main victims of the Cultural Revolution were government officials and intellectuals, but the book shows that it was those who had low social status and were classified as "class enemies" bore the brunt; Hu called the book "very important" in terms of "refuting some arbitrary distortion of the Cultural Revolution by the New Left".