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Tarfumes.com - Mao: The Unknown Story
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List Price: $35.00
Our Price: $19.40
Your Save: $ 15.60 ( 45% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Knopf
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 951.05092
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Knopf
Manufacturer: Knopf
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 832
Publication Date: 2005-10-18
Publisher: Knopf
Release Date: 2005-10-18
Studio: Knopf
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Editorial Reviews:
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“Ever since the spectacular success of Chang’s Wild Swans we have waited impatiently for her to complete with her husband this monumental study of China’s most notorious modern leader. The expectation has been that she would rewrite modern Chinese history. The wait has been worthwhile and the expectation justified. This is a bombshell of a book.”
–Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, in The Times (London)
Based on a decade of research and on interviews with many of Mao’s close circle in China who have never talked before–and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him–this is the most authoritative life of Mao ever written. It is full of startling revelations, exploding the myth of the Long March, and showing a completely unknown Mao: he was not driven by idealism or ideology; his intimate and intricate relationship with Stalin went back to the 1920s, ultimately bringing him to power; he welcomed Japanese occupation of much of China; and he schemed, poisoned and blackmailed to get his way. After Mao conquered China in 1949, his secret goal was to dominate the world. In chasing this dream he caused the deaths of 38 million people in the greatest famine in history. In all, well over 70 million Chinese perished under Mao’s rule–in peacetime.
Combining meticulous research with the story-telling style of Wild Swans, this biography offers a harrowing portrait of Mao’s ruthless accumulation of power through the exercise of terror: his first victims were the peasants, then the intellectuals and, finally, the inner circle of his own advisors. The reader enters the shadowy chambers of Mao’s court and eavesdrops on the drama in its hidden recesses. Mao’s character and the enormity of his behavior toward his wives, mistresses and children are unveiled for the first time.
This is an entirely fresh look at Mao in both content and approach. It will astonish historians and the general reader alike.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: The worst-case scenario of Mao
Comment: This book picks up its three stars because of the depth of research its authors did in search of new dirt on Mao, but that's a more limited positive than you might think. The book is so slanted against Mao that it's of almost no use to any reader without a deep pre-existing knowledge of Mao's life and history.
You would need that history to have a perspective on which of Chang and Halliday's accusations to take seriously, which might offer new revelations, and which should be dismissed as stretched truths or fabrications. In this entire long book, there is nary a complimentary statement about Mao to be found. I am perfectly willing to believe that Mao's rise and reign in China were a tragedy for the country and its people, but it's impossible to believe that a person could impact the world on the scale Mao did without some characteristics of leadership, intelligence and cunning.
Chang and Halliday would have you believe that an evil person, of no particular leadership ability, with no military skill, of average intelligence somehow schemed his way to being the leader of the most populous country on earth. That simply doesn't add up.
If you know Mao's story well and want to know what the average anti-Mao Chinese thought of the man, this is truly a good source based on primary research. If, however, you are looking for an objective overview of Mao's life, his rise to power, and his reign over China and its consequences, you'll have to keep looking.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Why blame the authors for their bias?
Comment: Mao: The Unknown Story deserves some attention. For those weary of Mao history, perhaps one more book will not make a difference. All histories are ultimately subjective. Some more than others. Jung Chang did not undertake this book to make Mao a nice person. Instead, it gives us as all books do - some insight into historical leaders. Does the book lack a balanced perspective? Sometimes. Does this invalidate the book? Certainly not. Did she and Jon Halliday do their homework? Definitely. Could the book have been better? Sure, in some places, Jung's appraisal of Mao's character (especially in the early years) feels more opinionated than observed. After all, people change and do evolve, and making certain definitive statements about how Mao was like even as a young man - may be jumping the gun and could have been better tempered. I think this what the critics of this book are responding to.
I have yet to read a Chinese history book that was happy. So let's face the facts - 20th century China went through a massive upheaval and shock. That they've been able to bounce back and become today's superpower has little to do with Mao, who liberated the nation but subjected it to his harsh ideologies. The men who succeeded Mao's leadership have to take some credit for where it is now - not Mao alone. He took them out of one darkness into another, and set the tone for the other country's leaders to improve on the country's fortunes. This is my response to those that say that "Mao did it all in spite of being a mass murderer." Mao had a friendly smile but he was brutal, so I am more than okay with an author who wants to address that point. The book is clearly a labour of love or hate that the authors committed themselves to bringing to the public.
GET THIS BOOK IF...
a) You like reading about power and understanding why China is the way it is today. This is a good study into power and how Mao shaped (and subverted) Chinese politics. His political legacies are still felt, making this a relevant read. + 1 point for addressing the Chinese psyche.
b) You want a clear, readable text. This isn't a dense, academic text. The writing is straightforward but the facts speak for themselves most of the time. + 1 point for writing style and organisation.
c) You want to understand Mao but not worry too much about other details. The book focusses mainly on Mao and doesn't divert too much into the other Chinese politicians so be aware of that. More research may be needed on them. 0.5 points for their backstories.
d) You need to know how Korea, SE Asia and Russia figured in China's development and vice versa.
Historical scholars will find this interesting, especially if they're into Asian or Chinese history. The book is 616 pages long with an additional 184 pages devoted to footnotes, research sources and indexes. + 1 point for usefulness.
e) You have read other Mao books and need more. If you have read other Mao bios, and want more details, this provides more clarity on certain things - e.g. his unwieldy relationships with Russia. + 1 point for delineating new info.
NOW - If you're new to Mao, do some basic reading on him first before jumping into this. Casual readers may appreciate this more with some background googling on Mao first. It's not a bad place to start, but you do need to know more about Chinese history to fully appreciate where Jung Chang is coming from sometimes. Characters like Sun Yat Sen aren't discussed in much detail so have your google ready.
Perhaps too much of modern China has been seen through Mao's rule but he remains its most visible personality and prism for now. Nonetheless, this is not an all-round introduction of modern China and will assume you understand some aspects. If not, I'd also recommend another Chinese history book to help you fill in the gaps as well. However, Mao Tse Tung cannot be ignored and Mao: The Unknown Story merits a look.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Evil beyond description
Comment: Words cannot convey the magnitude of atrocities against the Chinese people that are described in detail here. And most of it is still not known in the West. The author backs up the reporting of every event with two or three sources that were present at the time. According to the authors of The Black Book of Communism, estimates are now between 60 and 65 million Chinese that died as the direct result of Mao's attempt to create the Chinese version of the "New Soviet Man." The national psychosis of those years will take generations to recover from, olympics or no.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Relentlessly Brutal
Comment: If a picture is truly worth 1,000 words, Jung Chang could have drawn a crisper portrait and spared us the repetitive and monotonous diatribe that stretches over 600 pages. This depressing narrative is peppered with painstaking details on each solitary injury, strategic blunder and character foible of Mao over his long and lethal lifetime. As insightful and illustrative as all this might be, she could have chosen a few select examples and still made her points about what a savage, conscienceless thug he was.
The best chapters are those that depict Mao's scheming interactions with fascinating world-stage characters ranging from Stalin and Khrushchev to Kissinger and Nixon. The entertaining anecdotes about his personal habits and odd scatological humour add colour and lighten the dismal recounting of the fate of the mind-numbing millions who suffered under Mao. But, overall, the experience of reading this lengthy tome can be as relentlessly brutal as Mao himself.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Informative History of Mao
Comment:
I am not a student of Chinese history and knew little of the details of Mao's rule in China until reading this book. In fact, the reason I read the book at all was to learn a little something more than my general impressions derived from news reports during this period. With that said, my overall evaluation of the book is that it is a long ponderous volume that for the general reader is not worth the effort of slogging through over 600 page of dense text to learn some of the details of Mao's reign. I also have some skepticism of the large volume of supporting materials, which are used to source choice facts or quotes plucked from these items to support the authors' statements.
Despite the large effort necessary to get through it, the book serves a very basic need. I believe that even among sophisticated and educated people, little is known, especially in the United States, of the horrors of the Communist regimes of Stalin and Mao Tse Tung -- this in marked contrast to our knowledge of the Holocaust and Hitler's insanely evil mass murders. In recent years, however, some scholars (e.g., Robert Conquest) and popular writers (e.g., Martin Amis) have attempted to bring to the attention of general readers the atrocities and mass murders of Stalin and the Soviets. But as far as I know, there has been little corresponding effort with respect to Mao's atrocities, and this volume helps to fill that gap. Its greatest value thus lies in just setting forth the facts of Mao's mind-numbing atrocities. At the end of the book (p. 613), the authors write that "[w]ell over 70 million people had perished - in peacetime - as a result of his [Mao's] misrule." This one statement just about says it all. What more does one need to know about a leader who systematically caused the deaths of over 70 million innocent souls! The remainder of the book gives the ghastly details, in particular the widespread famines that resulted from requisitions of agricultural products needed by the regime to generate foreign exchange to support a massive weapons program.
The parallels between the atrocities of Stalin and Mao are striking. The pervasive use of state terror to acquire and consolidate political power, grain requisitions that left a helpless populace to starve to death, a war against peasants ("Kulaks" in USSR) and intellectuals, collectivization of families into state worker barracks, and party purges -- all carried out in the name of a Communist doctrine that was supposed to free "the people" from the yoke of capitalism. The authors point out, however, that while Stalin's mass murders were largely committed by a professional terror agency (KGB & its predecessor organizations) and in secret prisons and slave labor camps away from the public eye, Mao's atrocities were often carried out by frenzied bands of marauding Communist thugs in staged public gatherings where the victims were "denounced" and abused and tortured before crowds of cheering citizens.
But the extent to which the entire Communist movement in China was controlled and financed by Stalin came as a surprise to me, especially the fawning and subservient role played by Mao. According to the authors, virtually every major decision and policy move made by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the moment of its founding in the early 1920's until Mao's petulant attempts to show his independence in the 1950's was controlled by Moscow. I was not surprised to learn that the Soviets gave unqualified support to Mao after the Japanese were defeated in WWII while the US vacillated and hemmed and hawed in its support of Chiang.
I came away from the book with the feeling that I got only part of the story. For example, it is well known in America (neither of the authors is American, by the way) that the US "supported" Chiang Kai-Chek and his Nationalists in the fitful civil war that ravaged the country from the 1930's until Mao and the Communists drove Chiang to the island of Formosa in 1949. My impression from other readings is that the US support role in the civil war, especially from 1945 to 1949, was substantial and that President Truman's uncertain and bungling efforts to broker a compromise between Chiang and Mao led to the Communists' victory. Yet there is little in this volume describing US policy in China in the 1940's and its effect on the outcome of the civil war. In addition, there is no mention of the internal struggles within the US Government -- for example, the role of Communist sympathizers like FDR's Vice President Henry Wallace and Asian specialist Professor Owen Lattimore in securing Mao's triumph over Chiang.
All in all, the flaws in the book balance its benefits. Most of the text consists of anecdotal stories of Mao's cruelty, his never-ending scheming, and his intimate involvement in state atrocities -- to establish that Mao was a very bad man on a personal level. This theme is constantly embellished by reference to his personal traits and habits - for example, his four "marriages" and many children, for whom he had not the least regard, his elaborate security apparatus involving thousands of personnel, his luxurious life style in mansions constructed to his personal taste in every city in the nation where he might visit, his enjoyment of the benefits of things (e.g., movies and books) denied to his own citizens, and his procurement of young girls for sex much like medieval European kings. Clearly, the authors establish that Mao was a loathsome individual on almost every level of human existence. As they point out, however, his legacy and reputation still dominate the Chinese government, and as we saw in the Beijing 2008 Olympics, his portrait still hangs proudly in Tiananmen Square.
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