What an incredible book!

Was very insightful in the elements of power and ego within a leadership group.

Unbelieveable insight into China in the post WW2 era. It was heavy reading, with many names to keep track of, but extremely interesting.

Born and raised in mainland China, I grew up listening to a series of suspicious rumors about Mao Zedong - from his addiction to stewed pork, to his special preference of young, innocent girls. Later I learned that Mao had made tremendous mistakes and he has personally caused as many as 80 million deaths of Chinese people - they either starved to death thanks to Mao's frantic agricultural production plans or tortured to death thanks to Mao's cruel political cleansing. After the initial shock, what is left for me to wonder is how could Chinese people let these things happen. I still could not quite figure this out. But Li's book has provided some clues.