It is very peculiar that a book could be written of such length and full of such needling and petty detail while touching its subject so shallowly. The authors seem to view their job as to ascribe all evil to Mao, but it is not enough to say he was evil- what drove him?

The book reaches a hilarious level of propaganda language. No opportunity for universal hyperbole is missed; no closing statement of doom is left unsaid. Some of them made me laugh out loud, probably not the authors intention but the spitefulness is absurd when describing acts of evil that march into the "evil" category quite well on their own.

The authors claim in the book that they are correcting a history that glosses Mao too positively, and they demand Red China to shake its founding myth before it moves on. In 2006 when the book was published it is difficult to make an argument on the first point, and they do not provide a good argument for the second point. Should the people of China stand in corporate shame that their suffering stemmed from the meaningless rantings of a mad man, or should they move forward with pride building on what they themselves have suffered greatly to build themselves? The authors seem to think you can crush the memory of Mao without crushing the memory of the people; I doubt the two can be cleaved so easily.

As a final review of the book, it is a useful history, but it most certainly does not stand on its own and as I have explained does not meet or adequately argue for its stated aims.

Footnote: I happened to read this book at the same time as Nixonland: America's Second Civil War and the Divisive Legacy of Richard Nixon 1965-1972, leading to a couple of days of unremitting negativity. If you love to feel hopeless about history, these two books are for you!

بالنسبة لي من أفضل الكتب اللي تكلمت عن الصين وزعيمها الشيوعي ما وتسي تونغ قرأت الكتاب من سنة ونص تقريباً و أعتقد أحتاج أرجع له

Jung Chang wrote a beautiful story in Wild Swans, the biograpy of her own family through the Mao era, but this biography she has written of Mao Zedong is flawed in that she clearly lets her overwhelming hatred for what her family went through keep her from being an objective biographer. Chang paints Mao as a monster. He did fail as a leader, but he also did many good things for China. A historian--the role Chang is attempting to assume here--needs to look at all sides of these issues of power and place. That said, this is still a book worth reading, especially if you read it up against the solid historical texts of sinologists like Jonathan Spence or Patricia Ebrey.

this book presents an overblown and out of proportion account of a very evil man. Mao screwed up through most of his rule, leaving only one lasting positive achievement (united, warlord free China) after causing the death of so many innocents due to his increasing paranoia and screwups. At times, you learn something interesting and there are many rare gems most western readers wouldn't know about China's historical figures, most who weren't saints but practical men who had agendas to satisfy and weren't afraid to go for blood. But most of the time in what is one of the worst history books ever written, you get a sense the author is using a crude "whatever it takes" approach, in trying to take apart the chaiman. Bias is tolerable in a history book up to a point, and the author takes a flying leap off it, which made me think for a moment that she had distorted facts or even exaggerated some of them. From presenting no evidence of sensationalist accusations to ignoring existing literature on the subject, the author has merely been engaged in muckraking at its finest.
Not recommended, as one of the reviews said "It reads like an entertaining version of a Chinese Soap Opera" and should only be used as a door stop. There are much better, more accurate, less biased and completely dispassionate books out there.

3.5 stars.

Mao was one of the most brutal tyrants of the 20th century, yet somehow seems to have evaded the universal condemnation his contemporaries Hitler and Stalin have suffered. This is probably due to the fact that Mao's government, though reformed to a degree, is still in existence, whereas the former examples make easier targets since their governments have since collapsed.

The writers of the this book certainly do not hide their distain for Mao Zedong. This is something that many people have criticized Chang for, and I too find that her personal feelings do bleed too much into the accounts.

That being said, I also recognize that her family had to live under Maoist China; that her family escaped the seige of Changchun where Mao ordered the deliberate starvation of ~200k civilians in order to get the Nationalist Army to surrender. I'm sure no one would be surprised if a person whose family lived under Nazi Germany and escaped the concentration camps would have a negative opinion of Adolf Hitler. Or if the author's family lived under Soviet controlled Ukraine and lived through the Holodormor genocide, we'd all probably expect some negative bias towards Stalin. The bias exists, but it is absolutely well founded and deserved.

Just to recap some of Mao Zedong's major despotic world records for those not convinced of his atrocities: an average of 10 million people annually confined to re-education labor camps throughout Maos reign, including an estimate of 27 million people perishing in those camps in the same timeframe. Approximately 30 million people starved to death from 1959-1961 by a man-made famine caused by Mao's personal food exportation quota policies (largest famine death toll in history). Approximately 1 million people beaten to death by red guard cadre during the cultural revolution. Between 50 to 70 million people killed under the Maoist regime during peacetime, more than any other tyrant in the 20th century (likely history). And none of these examples include the tens of millions who suffered tortures like smashing of testicles with bamboo vices, stringing cord through gentiles and noses, cutting off fingers, and countless other atrocities that occurred under his regime in the name of the Communist revolution, even those these atrocities may not have resulted in immediate death.

The book was extremely well researched and citations can be found in the back of the book. The countless hours it must have taken to scrub CCP and Soviet documents to develop the context and mind set of the various actors throughout a roughly 60 year timeframe is admirable. One should definitely read the book and get a very thorough negative perspective of Chairman Mao to either introduce you to him or expand your current perspective on who he was.

I think this book is wonderful, it may have flaws but the passion is both true and understandable. It is probably hard for those who did not grow up in the 1960s or 70s to understand just what a commanding figure Mao was, so many reporters, academics, left leaning philosophers, literatures and others watched and knew of the horrors of Mao's rule and ignored them as they trumped the so called accomplishments of his mass murdering regimen. Rather like the same people did for Stalin. It is extraordinary the benefit of the doubt that Western 'intellectuals' have given to left wing dictatorships. Although they would never have accepted, or survived, the systems they so lavishly praised and supported they always thought they were what other, foreign, poor, uneducated people
needed. Their hypocracy and double standards are shocking.

That is the background to what Chang and Halliday wrote. They wanted to topple an idol and in that they succeeded. Although it may be true that the uncritical hagiography that Mao received earlier was no longer the line most academics took there was still a massive misunderstanding of Mao's personality and lifestyle (the amount of crap poured out back in the past about the aesthetic simplicity of Mao when he was in fact grotesque sybarite is impossible to imagine. He was presented as st Francis of Assisi figure while all the time he was debauching young girls) and about the destructive, murderous awfulness of the regimen he created amongst the general public. This book shattered those illusions forever.

Of course there are newer books on Mao and this one has flaws. But he was a monster and deserved to be described as such. Those who covered up for him are the ones who committed crimes against truth. If this book fails in details the overall portrait is true.

A stunning book about a horrible man.

I hated this book. The author felt like the least objective person in the world, which was crazy, because her source material is one of the nastiest people to walk the face of the earth. All she really had to do was present her copious research to the reader and then let the reader fill in the blanks on how despicable Mao was. Instead, it was endless speculative leaps and questionable conclusions.

This book is anti-Mao, for sure, but from what I've read in other books, that seems to be justified. Mao is responsible for the worst man-made famine in all of history--30 million people died. He caused the deaths of more people than Hitler and Stalin put together. A lot of people don't know that because it isn't part of Western history, but it is true. My only problem with the book was the exhaustive detail. Sometimes it was just too much. But I found it well-researched and informative.

A chilling account of a despicable monster.

Mao egy dög volt. Ezt persze eddig is tudtuk. De hogy ekkora dög volt, az még számomra is újdonság. Sok szempontból Sztálin updatált verziójának tűnik: az a fajta diktátor, aki felismerte, hogy ha nem hagyja magát korlátozni az ideológiáktól, az növeli stratégiai mozgásterét. Ilyen értelemben ő is elsősorban retorikailag volt marxista, valójában bármilyen kártyát szívesen kijátszott a kultúraellenességtől a nacionalizmuson át a szimpla xenofóbiáig, ha épp attól remélte hatalma megszilárdulását. Ő is, mint a diktátorok általában, állampolgáraira absztrakcióként tekintett – viszont ezt olyan léptékben csinálta, ami ép ésszel felfoghatatlan. Meghal 300 millió kínai egy esetleges atomháborúban? Oda se neki, legalább mindenkinek dupla annyi helye lesz. Hát mivé lenne a világ, ha soha senki nem halna meg? A parasztoknak kevesebb napi kalória jut, mint az auschwitzi foglyoknak? Legalább nem híznak meg, mint a nyugatiak. Úgyhogy csak növeljük háromszorosára a kötelező beszolgáltatást, mert a ruszkiknak élelmiszerrel kell fizetnünk a haditechnikáért. És mellesleg Mao rendelkezett a diktátorok egyéb szériafelszereltségeivel is: paranoiás volt, és bár nem nagyon értett az olyan apróságokhoz, mint a gazdaság vagy a hadvezetés, sosem szűnt meg mégis belepofázni mindenbe. Például mekkora nagy ötlet szerszám nélkül kizavarni a jónépet, hogy a két kezükkel építsenek víztározókat! Igaz ugyan, hogy az első áradás elmosta az egészet, de kit érdekel, én nem ott lakom. Meg micsoda remek idea a kert végében vaskohókat építtetni a falusiakkal, és beolvasztatni velük még a szerszámaikat is, csak mert az acél országa akarunk lenni! Igaz ugyan, hogy az így nyert fém semmire se lesz használható – még a popónkat se tudjuk kitörölni vele, hiszen FÉM. Mindennek végösszege (a szerzőpáros számítása szerint) cirka 70.000.000 kínai holttetem.

A kötettel csak az a baj, hogy nem igazán történelem. Hanem egyfajta ellen-történelem – vagyis a hivatalos maoista üdvtörténet pontról pontra végigvitt cáfolata. Olyan szinten Mao van a középpontjában, hogy az már nemhogy a tárgyilagosság rovására megy, de egyenesen beledarálja a tárgyilagosságot a komposztba. A kuomintang például, való igaz, Mao közvetlen környezeténél jóval kevésbé volt megveszekedett tömeggyilkosok gyülekezete, de e kötet alapján konkrétan cserkészcsapatnak tűnik. Ez pedig azért van, mert a szerzők vélelmezhető szándéka szerint semmi, de semmidesemmi nem terelheti el a figyelmünket Mao páratlan gonoszságáról. Természetfeletti démont csinálnak belőle, de olyan mélységig, hogy még Sztálin agyvérzését is szép óvatosan a nyakába varrják. Komolyan. (Ráadásul Chang és Halliday valószínűleg telepatikus képességekkel is bírnak, mert olyanokat írnak, hogy „Mao az ágyában arra gondolt…” – nos, én elhiszem, hogy Mao se az ágyában, se máshol nem gondolt semmi jóra, de azt azért nem merném állítani, hogy bárki tudhatja, mire gondolt.) Mindez oda vezet, hogy az egész tömeggyilkosságért csak Mao és a legszűkebb slepp felel, maga Kína népe pedig (a legtöbb tisztviselőt is beleértve) a megerőszakolt szűzlány szerepét játssza, akit terrorral és zsarolással térítenek le az igaz útról. No most én ebben mértékkel hiszek – tapasztalatom szerint a diktatúrák nem működhetnek anélkül, hogy a népesség számottevő része (a „számottevőn” lehet vitatkozni) ne állna mellettük. Vagy azért, mert a rosszabbik énjükre erősít rá a Nagy Vezér, vagy azért, mert olyasvalamit ajánl fel nekik, amit az előző kormányzat elmulasztott: munkát, vagy továbbtanulási lehetőséget a legszegényebbek számára is. Például. Nos, ez az elem ebből a könyvből teljesen hiányzik. És szerintem enélkül meg vagyunk fosztva a lehetőségtől, hogy igazán megértsük Mao rendszerének lényegét. Csak a szörnyülködés marad.

Mert szörnyülködni amúgy igazán jóízűt lehet ezen a könyvön: igazi Fekete Könyve az ázsiai XX. századnak. Jó gyomrú olvasók mindenképpen vágjanak bele, mert számos érdekes, releváns információ van benne, még ha néha el is rejti őket a borzalmak monoton sorjázása. Csak épp egyszer szeretnék olvasni egy olyan könyvet is Mao-ról, amiből nem csöpög ennyire az amúgy jogos gyűlölet.

After almost 2 years, I’m finally calling it quits on this one. Interesting stuff in there, but the past 200 pages (at least) have been wayyy too nitty gritty with the details (“Then Mao’s cabinet member’s ex-wife colluded with Stalin’s former housekeeper to influence their uncle to undermine the KGB…” type of details). Give me the broad strokes.

I did learn a lot early on though. Surprise surprise, Mao was not a great guy. The most shocking story: At one point, his second wife - who truly, deeply loved him and their children - was taken captive. She had a choice to either recant from supporting Mao or be tortured until she died. She refused to recant, no matter what. Meanwhile, Mao, who heard that she was being tortured for him only miles away from his current location, decided to…

a) take his army to save her?
b) immediately run to her rescue himself?
c) send a messenger to negotiate?
or
d) immediately take a 3rd wife and go on his merry way?

Yep, you guessed it. Not a great guy.

I'm going to have to come back to this; it's an exhaustive read. I will say this: I would have given it five stars but for the fact that the writing itself is extremely textbookish. At times, reading it was a chore that ranks up there with getting through John Galt's 60-page speech in Atlas Shrugged. But Mao is so well researched and such an interesting topic, covering a fascinating period in Chinese history ...

Update: If you really are a glutton for punishment and want to read what I really think about this book, you can go here [link: http://geckosbark.com/mao-the-unknown...]

And if anyone knows of a less retarded way to insert a link here (I tried all the coding tricks I could think of -- not sure what version of html/php is going on here), please contact me ...