July 8 (Bloomberg) -- In Du Xiuxian's October 1976 photo of the Chinese Communist Party's leaders, 12 men and women sit on either side of a long, white-draped table to arrange the state funeral for Mao Zedong.

The meeting would turn out to mark the end of China's 10-year Cultural Revolution and the era Mao created. Two days later, Deng Xiaoping arrested Mao's widow and ousted chairman Hua Guofeng in a coup d'etat that began the transformation of China's economy.

The photo by Du, now 83 and hard of hearing, is among more than 300 in Liu Heung Shing's ``China: Portrait of a Country,'' which chronicles the country's history since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. One in three of the images has never been published, Liu said in his courtyard-style home north of Beijing's Forbidden City.

``China has shorthanded so much of the nation's own history by omitting many images from the official media,'' said Liu, one of the Associated Press photographers who shared the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for documenting the fall of the Soviet Union.

``This book is a collection of aesthetically beautiful photos that chronicled history in the making and celebrate ordinary lives. It's not about presenting the `Aha! Gotcha!' moments.''

The book, published this month in English, French and German, is divided into six, decade-long chapters reflecting the twists and turns of China's fortunes, with historical context written by former Financial Times journalist James Kynge. Hong Kong-born Liu was Time magazine's first accredited photographer in China.

Communist Dawn

The dawn of the communist country is portrayed by a soldier reading the People's Daily newspaper to his platoon in Tiananmen Square on Oct. 1, 1949, where 300,000 troops awaited Mao's proclamation of the founding of the People's Republic.

Soon after, the communists seized assets and drove landowners from their properties. Photos of the era show peasants in collective labor, or tending backyard steel furnaces.

In the 1960s, Mao put 99 percent of China's 120 million rural dwellers into communes and sent urban youths to farms to learn from peasants. A photo by Yin Fukan shows actors singing in 1960 for Shanghai shipbuilders -- one of the country's first color photographs. Wang Shilong's 1965 picture of fields lined with ideological slogans became an icon for the decade.

In 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution to regain his waning political influence. Jiang Shaowu's 1966 photo shows the public denunciation of Liaoning party chief Yu Ping, who survived the purge and presided over the trial 15 years later of the Gang of Four, held accountable for the 10 years of chaos.

Photos by Jiang and Li Zhensheng of 1968 showed the Cultural Revolution at its climax, with public purges and summary executions of people labeled as ``capitalist roaders.''

Mao's Elite

As Xinhua News Agency's chief photographer in Zhongnanhai, where Mao and his coterie lived, Du had unique access to photograph the daily life of China's elite.

A 1974 photo shows Mao's wife Jiang Qing, dressed in what would become the decade's most fashionable style, posing hand in hand with Mao's then mistress and nurse Zhang Yufeng.

Another Du portrait shows Madam Mao dressed in mourning in 1976 for the chairman, hours before she was arrested.

Du's never-published picture of the Gang of Four attending a eulogy for Mao after his death is juxtaposed with Xinhua's official shot of the event, where the four have been removed.

Pictures in the book by Liu depict the changing lifestyles on the road to capitalism. In one, a young man holds the first bottle of Coca-Cola in the Forbidden City in 1981.

A photo by an anonymous contributor shows the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on protesters, where as many as 2,000 people were reportedly killed. Victims lie beside crushed bicycles, while a crowd gathers to gawk. Liu's shot the next day of a couple hiding under a bridge while a tank passed overhead was named Picture of the Year.

Spy Plane

The book's strength is in the rare, pre-1980s shots, when images were tightly controlled. As photojournalism began to flourish after 1990, omissions become more apparent, such as the 2001 crash of a U.S. spy plane in Hainan.

``We can't possibly include every episode of China's history,'' said Liu. ``There has to be a bit of selectiveness.''

Later photos show the uneven lurch toward capitalism, such as Xie Hailong's 1992 image of the smallest school in rural Shanxi province -- a teacher and three pupils. A shot by Zhang Xinmin the same year captures the distress of a stock market investor who lost his money.

The final pages chronicle three milestones this year: the March 14 riots in Lhasa, Tibet; the ascent of the Olympic torch to the Everest summit on May 8; the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan -- an indication that the changes sweeping the country offer no convenient moment to end such a collection.

``China: Portrait of a Nation'' is published by Taschen on July 28 (422 pages, 30 pounds).

(Eugene Tang writes for Bloomberg News. Opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Eugene Tang in Beijing on eugenetang@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 7, 2008 12:00 EDT