The Long March is Communist China's founding myth. Seventy years afterwards, Sun Shuyun set out to retrace its steps and discovered the true history behind the legend. Sun journeys to remote villages along the route, interviews aged survivors and visits local archives, uncovering shocking stories of starvation, disease, and desertion, of ruthless purges, of thousands of futile deaths, and of other horrors that continued long after the "triumph" of the revolution.