From the back cover:

Brightly colored prints, portraying model behavior or a better nature, have been a ubiquitous element of Chinese political culture from Imperial times until the present.

As economic reform swept the People's Republic in the 1980s, visual propaganda ceased to depict the tanned and muscular laborers in a proletarian utopia, so typical of preceding decades. Instead, Western icons of progress and development were employed: high-speed bullet trains, spacecraft, high-rise buildings, gridlocked affluence. Socialist Realism was phased out by design and mixed-media techniques that were influenced by Western advertising.

This lavishly illustrated study traces the development of the style and content of the Chinese propaganda poster in the decade of the reform, from its traditional origins to its use as a tool for political and economic purposes.

Dr. Landsberger is a prominent Dutch sinologist at the University of Leyden, the Netherlands