In a turbulent century that saw China emerge from a collapsed ancient regime to become today's great economic power, the nation produced many political giants who helped shape this amazing transformation. But it is Deng Xiaoping - once ridiculed by a CNN commentator as 'the chain-smoking communist dwarf' - who may cast the longest shadow in history.
Deng was never as respected by the public as was Sun Yat-sen or Zhou Enlai. Nor did he ever command the kind of absolute power of the 'Great Helmsman' Mao Zedong, or even Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. Yet by the time he retired from politics, the diminutive son of Sichuan had guided the nation to a goal that had eluded his more illustrious predecessors: returning China to the forefront of world powers.
Still, in many ways it is difficult to define Deng and his legacy. People's reactions towards Mao tend to be extreme but clear-cut. For Deng, it is often a mixture of admiration and criticism. He has been praised for ending the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution and for promoting the open-door policy that has brought three decades of sustained growth. But at the same time, many are critical of his resistance to Western-style political reforms and blame his lopsided philosophy of development for today's problems.
So when Ezra Vogel - a Harvard University scholar of contemporary East Asian history and culture - decided to dedicate 10 years after his retirement to writing a book on Deng, the work was bound to receive great attention. Since Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China hit book shops this summer, it has indeed generated debate and controversy - probably more than Vogel expected.
While most reviewers praise the 928-page book as the most comprehensive work on Deng by a Western scholar to date, many criticise Vogel for having seemingly cast the man - whose brutal crackdown on the 1989 pro-democracy movement still infuriates many - in too positive a light. One reviewer writes that 'Vogel is so effusive in his praise of Deng that the book sometimes reads as if it came straight from party headquarters'.
After a careful reading of the book such criticism seems unjustified.