A Macrohistory of the Communist World：The Making and Unmaking of a Revolutionary Ideal

A long-term and cross-regional historical perspective.
Detailing the rise and fall of communism.

A Macrohistory of the Communist World tells the history of communism, the Communist Party, and communist countries from a global perspective, introducing important historical events and the life stories of historical figures. The book is divided into five parts, describing in detail the formation, expansion, division and collapse of the communist world. The regions spanned include four continents: Europe, Asia, America and Africa. The period lasts for two hundred years from the beginning of the 19th century to the 21st century. The book also makes necessary statements about the development of capitalism and socialism, which are in opposition and competition with communism. This is a must-read book for anyone who wants to thoroughly understand the Communist Party.

C L Lu (呂正理), born in 1950, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry from Taiwan’s National Tsinghua University. He served as a senior executive in Taiwan and China at ICI, a multinational chemical company, later becoming a business consultant to clients operating in Taiwan, China, and Southeast Asia. His passion, nevertheless, has always been for history.

His first book, History from a Different Perspective: A Polygonal-Interacting History of China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the Surrounding World, won the 2011 Taipei International Book Exhibition Award. In 2015, a simplified Chinese version of the book was published in Beijing under a different title: A Macrohistory of East Asia. In 2020, he published A Macrohistory of the Communist World: The Rise and Fall of Communism and Communist Parties. An updated and revised edition, A Macrohistory of the Communist World: The Making and Unmaking of a Revolutionary Ideal, was published in 2025. This book is the English version of the 2025 edition; it is the first of his works to be translated into English.