Mao
Genres and Themes
Similar Books
The Unknown Story
Stalin, Hitler, and now… Mao? In this new biography, Chang and Halliday argue that Mao Zedong (1893-1976), who ruled one-fourth of the world’s population by the tactics of terror after 1949, caused the deaths of 38 million Chinese during history’s largest famine in the years of the Great Leap Forward, There were more than 70 million deaths in total by the end of the Cultural Revolution. The authors’ indictment of Mao reveals a man driven more by dreams of power than ideology, one who exploited peasants to fit his agenda, embraced the Japanese occupation of China, served as a puppet of Stalin, and exacted a tremendous human price for industrialization. Mao demolishes the myths and "official" history propagated by the Chinese Communist Party to expose the brutal, calculating demagogue beneath.
Knopf. 814 pages. $35. ISBN: 0679422714
Christian Science Monitor
"To dive into this hefty new biography of China’s ‘great Helmsman’ is to feel alternately shocked, angry, and, finally, just plain sick at heart. … There is much that is painful to read in this book, but perhaps the harshest chapters are those that deal with the starvation of the Chinese people in the 1950s." Marjorie Kehe
NY Times Book Review
"Based on a decade of meticulous interviews and archival research, this magnificent biography methodically demolishes every pillar of Mao’s claim to sympathy or legitimacy. … My own feeling is that most of the facts and revelations seem pretty well backed up, but that ambiguities are not always adequately acknowledged." Nicholas D. Kristof
USA Today
"After finishing it, readers will cast a skeptical eye on the media’s sympathetic presentation of Mao in his later years, U.S. foreign policy and the current Chinese regime’s reverence for Mao. … Still, for anyone in search of a serious examination of Mao, his gruesome legacy and China, this astonishing book is a must-read." Deirdre Donahue
San Francisco Chronicle
"Readers who are even slightly inclined toward the subject are likely to find the book, for all its weightiness, hard to put down. … [But] by the end of the reader’s efforts, the thrill and even titillation that comes from learning many dark truths about someone you thought was already familiar have gradually come to be dulled, perhaps for some even outweighed by a yearning for countervailing facts or alternative points of view." Howard W. French
Wall Street Journal
"By dismantling the Party’s claim to have fought the Japanese, Jung Chang and her British husband have tackled the CCP’s last remaining claims to any political legitimacy. Knock that, and you may knock them off their pedestal." Jasper Becker
New York Times
"There are few clues to childhood or adolescent ordeals (aside from having a father he disliked) that might have shaped his pathological psyche, no assessment of philosophers (like Nietzsche or Machiavelli, say) who might have influenced his philosophy, no analysis of the dictator’s mature writings that might shed light on his politics or values. … To make matters worse, they occasionally make gross generalizations that cannot be proved." Michiko Kakutani
Critical Summary
Chang, who was born in China in 1952 and left for Britain in 1978, recounted her family’s suffering under Mao in her award-winning Wild Swans (1991). With husband-historian Halliday, she has written a shocking, authoritative account of Mao’s life. The authors present evidence that refutes almost every aspect of the Chinese Communist Party’s account, from the claim that the Party fought the Japanese to Mao’s role in the Long March. Having gleaned indicting information from newly available Chinese and Soviet archives, they depict Mao as a bloodthirsty, ruthless egoist who committed crimes against humanity as serious as Hitler’s and Stalin’s. While critics acknowledged the authors’ contemptuous, one-sided depiction of Mao, few faulted it. Some tedious details, vague generalizations, and scarce imperial history and context for Mao’s rise frustrated some critics. But the book will destroy Mao’s reputation forever.
Also by the Author
Wild Swans | Jung Chang (1991): In this family portrait, Chang tells the stories of three generations of women during the 20th century—her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine with bound feet; her mother, denounced during the Cultural Revolution; and herself, a temporary Mao loyalist.
Work at home|get paid
Work at home|get paid online|home based business|make money online
Great article, keep up the
Great article, keep up the good work.
----------------------------------------------------
برامج نت|free software|افضل المواقع العربية|منتدى
برامج نت|العاب فلاش - العاب بنات|برامج|دليل
المواقع|عيادة طب |
الأرشيف|برامج مشروحة|برامج ترجمة|برامج الفاكس|برامج طباعة|برامج تحرير|برامج التقاط الصور والشاشات|برامج سطح المكتب|برامج البريد الالكتروني|برامج خدمات البريد الاكتروني|برامج القوائم البريدية|برامج ادوات البريد الاكتروني|برامج مكافحة الرسائل المزعجة|برامج الإنترنت|برامج مشاهده القنوات الفضائيه|برامج تسربع الانترنت|برامج تحميل الملفات والصور|برامج المحادثة|برامج ماسنجر|اتصال دولي - الرسائل القصيره|إدوات خدمية وتعاريف قطع جهاز|برامج نسخ الأحتياطي|ادارة الملفات|تقارير الاداء|ضغط وفك ضغط الملفات|الصيانة والمعالجة|ادارة النظام|برامج تحرير الذاكره|الحفظ الاحتياطي|برامج الاداره والتحكم|برامج شبكات|برامج الحماية|برامج مكافحة الفايروسات|مكافحة ملفات التجسس|برامج صد الهاكرز والمخترقين|برامج تشفير ملفات|اخر تحديثات|برامج الرسوم والتصاميم|برامج الفلاش|برامج تحرير الصور|برامج استعراض الصور|برامج ادوات الصور الرقمية|برامج تحويل صور|برامج التقاط الصور|اضافات الصور|برامج جوالات سوني أريكسون
The Private Life of Chairman Mao is a better book
Chang and Halliday’s Mao, Unknown Story is good, but it is not good as The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Dr. Zhisui Li
Chang and Halliday’s Mao, Unknown Story provided a brand new version and perspective of Chairman Mao. It is the first time to portray Chairman Mao as a bloody mass-murderer. In their book, Chairman Mao was a large-scale murderer during a Chinese peace era. Nearly 80 million people were dead by his Utopian idealism: that was an unbelievable number. It is four times the number of deaths of the Soviets in the war between the Soviet Union and Germany. He used drastic violence to suppress people who he believed stood in his way for industrializing China. He ignored the death of 30 million people during the starvation period of the Great Famine, which was caused by his foolish “Great Leap Forward” for overtaking the British and catching up to the Americans. After the Great Famine, his lunatic behavior reached new heights. He launched the culture revolution, which was completely insane. He became a maniac. Under his direction, the violence was propelled to its bloodiest high tide. The horror broke historic records. Elementary school students unbelievably beat their teachers to death. The death toll was continuing to pile up until the day he died. From Mao, Unknown Story, the figure of Chairman Mao was drawn as a vicious monster and mass-murderer.
No wonder, horrible bloody killings described in Mao, Unknown Story truly happened in China from 1949, when Chairman Mao took over China, to 1976 when Chairman Mao died. Chairman Mao did everything so lunatic, and insane. From the catastrophe which he brought to China, he deserves to be considered a bloodthirsty monster and a bloody mass murderer. Overall, the book is good and correct.
Even though the book is good and correct, it cannot compare with Dr. Zhisui Li’s The Private Life of Chairman Mao in deeply and lively describing of Chairman Mao. No less than Dr. Andrew Nathan pointed out, all of biographic writers have a limitation in deeply and lively describing their objects. Because they have never served their objects, they have no chance to observe them closely. Also they have done a lot of research, but the inherent defect is that they don’t really know their objects’ personality and psychology. They don’t know their objects’ courtyard operations; their objects’ retainers, and the relationship between their objects, their objects’ retainers and the government officials.
Dr. Zhisui Li’s The Private Life of Chairman Mao did not portray Chairman Mao as a bloodthirsty monster and a bloody mass murderer; instead of that, it focused on details of Chairman Mao’s personality, psychology and his courtyard operation. Owing to Dr. Zhisui Li’s position, it made him as so called: inside man. He could know a lot of Chairman Mao’s important information that an outsider could not know. Even Chairman Mao’s former public health minister told Dr. Li to come see him anytime if Dr. Li wanted to tell him about any of Chairman Mao’s activities. In the same way, Chairman Mao’s former chief commanding officer of guards also was available to Dr. Li with no appointment.
The deepest impression for me about Dr. Li’s book is the Chairman Mao’s courtyard and his retainers. Chairman Mao’s medical doctor, chief commanding officer of guards and secretaries comprised his retainers. They were called “Group One”. Chairman Mao’s retainers formed a powerful and vicious retainer circle. Their power was even above party officials. The party officials were not servants of people. Instead they were servants of Chairman Mao. They cared for Chairman Mao’s retainers a lot of more than they cared for people. The gossip of those retainers could cause party officials a serious trouble. People were powerless and ignored. The party officials entertained Chairman Mao’s retainers with the best Chinese whiskey and the best Chinese cuisine while the Chinese commoners had a little of meat to eat. During the starvation period of the Great Famine, Chairman Mao even stopped eating meat. But his retainers flaunted the banner of celebrating Chairman Mao’s birthday, and required the local party officials to hold a grand dinner party for them. The dinner fulfilled the best Chinese cuisine, seafood, and the best Chinese whiskey, wine, beer. The party was in the name of celebrating Chairman Mao’s birthday, but Chairman Mao didn’t even attend. Dr. Li found it very hard to swallow that tasty food. However his colleague exhorted Dr. Li, saying that unless he wanted to leave “Group One”, he had better wallow in the mire with them. Some party officials even colluded with some of Mao’s retainers making a fraud deal in secret. The fraud deal deceived party treasurers by saying that Chairman Mao ate more than one thousand chickens in three, four days. Actually, the party officials took chickens for their own meals. Chairman Mao even had never known it until he was dead.
The factions in Chairman Mao’s retainers circle were stricken by each other fiercely. Opponents attempted to topple their counter part desperately. A vicious atmosphere permeated daily life. Nobody felt safe. Chairman Mao’s wife was frequently involved in the factions’ conflicts. In this vicious atmosphere, even Chairman Mao himself suspected somebody of crawling on his bedroom roof at midnight. He did not trust any of his retainers. He even suspected that the swimming pool in his palace was poisoned.
Dr. Li’s dream to be a great neural surgeon became a surviving nightmare. Although Dr. Li wanted to avoid touching this vicious politics, he could not stay out from it. For survival he was forced to stay with one faction. Later, the factions’ grappling escalated to a cross line battle between the retainer circle and party officials, and eventually led to a palace coup after Chairman Mao was dead. Chairman Mao’s wife and her three colleagues were arrested. However, Dr. Li survived successfully.
I feel that Dr. Li portrayed the figure of Chairman Mao and his courtyard operation more close to the true Chinese history, what was really happened in China from 1949 to 1976. Compared to Dr. Li’s book, Chang and Halliday’s Mao, Unknown Story seems pale.