In late July, the Chinese University Press in Hong Kong released a trove of previously unpublished documents about Zhao Ziyang, the bold reformer who served as China’s premier (1980-1987) and Communist Party general secretary (1987-1989). Containing almost 500 documents that were smuggled out of China, The Collected Works of Zhao Ziyang, 1980-1989 (in Chinese) shows how Zhao led a decade of transformational economic reform and sketched-out plans for political reform. It cuts off shortly before he was stripped of his power and placed under house arrest after opposing the use of force against the student protesters in the spring of 1989. The ruling Chinese Communist Party has subsequently effaced his contributions; when he died in 2005, his short official obituary referred to him only as a “comrade,” not mentioning that he had helped lead the country for nearly 10 years. These four volumes, which are selling briskly, have renewed interest in Zhao’s time in power—and they offer an opportunity to imagine what might have been, had he not been purged in 1989. How should we assess his legacy, and what might China be like today under a Zhao administration, or under a leader who governed like Zhao did? —The Editors