Cold history, living memory

It wasn't easy sifting through the 12 notebooks to discover these stories.

Liu spent eight years, from 2015 to 2023, reading them carefully. The first year, he typed them all out — roughly 400,000 words — and sorted them into different categories. The following two years, from 2016 to 2018, he honed in on the financial records, comparing them with other materials, including the notebooks of other Shanxi officials.

At the end of 2018, Liu realized that he needed to contact Zhang's family to find out more and to gain consent for publishing things that might concern his privacy.

Judging from the dates of births of Zhang's children as recorded in the 12 notebooks, the oldest daughter among his nine children was already 70 years old, while his youngest son was 59.

Finally, Liu caught up with Zhang Yankui, Zhang Jianmin's fifth son, who often appeared in the medical bills of his financial records during his early childhood in the 1960s.

All of Zhang's children who were contacted consented to Liu's request to publish details of the old notebooks.

Upon its publication last year, the book attracted much attention and was subsequently named to the annual Top 10 Books of Social Sciences Academic Press.

"History is cold, but memories are alive," wrote Cai Hui, a history writer and book reviewer after reading Liu's book. "It's the memories that link the individuals with the grand history. By checking the time-honored financial records, the book has provided a unique microscopic angle from individuals, which is so interesting as to provide more possibilities about history."

In the preface to his book, Liu cited French philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre, who wrote in his analysis Critique of Everyday Life that "the simplest event — a woman buying a pound of sugar — must be analyzed".

"Compared to that pound of sugar, Jianmin's financial records are precious treasure of a whole age."

zhangzhouxiang@chinadaily.com.cn