Shen Zhihua (simplified Chinese: 沈志华; traditional Chinese: 沈志華; (this is a Chinese name; the family name is Shen.) is a professor of history at East China Normal University and adjunct professor at Peking University and Renmin University of China. Shen is an expert in the history of the Soviet Union, Sino-Soviet relations, and the Cold War. He is director of the Center for Oriental History Studies of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and honorary researcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 2011 Shen was public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.
This book is a collection of Shen's academic paper on some historical events in the most critical year of 1956-1957. If you have listened to his recorded lectures. I think you can skip the book for reading it will offer you very little new insights. He's covered most of his ideas in his speeches and lectures. The book is just filled with more details and references.