Occasionally a tough read, but overall Philip Short's biography of a beloved dictator is an exemplary example of historical writing. Probably not recommended for the casual reader but a great insight into the psychology of a mind that managed to inspire so many and wreak so much terror and suffering on the majority.

Finished. Authoritative bio, w focus on his struggles against the GMD. Goodness, what a life…

At the outbreak of the Korean War, Mao’s son Anying insisted on joining the Chinese volunteer force which marched across the Yalu in 1951 to halt the advance of the Americans. His reasons were similar to those which had led Mao to order the intervention in the first place. Communistic fervor, of course, but also a sense of moral obligation. After all, during the Civil War, had not 100k Koreans fought and died with the Chinese in Manchuria?

Mao was reluctant. In addition to a child who died as a toddler, Mao had two sons, Anying and Anlong, with his second wife, Yang Kaihui. He’d loved her deeply, although he took her for granted and always chose the revolution over this love (it’s funny, writing that. It’s like how someone now would prioritize their nonprofit career over a loving relationship. But the stakes were much, much higher).

The pursuit of revolution had horrible consequences for his family. Anying and his brother, Anlong, were forced to scrounge an existence as homeless street children in Shanghai for many years. Anlong later developed schizophrenia and spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital in Dailin; it’s not hard to speculate that his mental illness was an outgrowth of the experience of abandonment.

Yang Kaihi’s fate was worst of all: she was executed by nationalist forces after being captured in the Jiangxi base area. All the while, Mao, separated by his family by the exegesis of revolution, had fallen in love with another woman, He Zizhen. Together they had five children. Three were abandoned as infants, given over to peasant families during the lean years of the Jiangxi base area and the Long March. Another died.

Less than a month after entering the front, Anying was killed in an American bombing run, and buried in a mass grave. Mao only found out three months later, told by the commander of Chinese troops in Korea. Mao began to shake so violently he was unable to light a cigarette.

After a few minutes of silence, he said “In revolutionary war, you always pay a price. Anying was one of thousands … You shouldn't take it as something special just because he was my son.”

In his biography, Philip Short never attempts to psychoanalyze the Chinese dictator. It is a methodical, precise book, working only with the available information, delving into speculation only on rare occasions. It’s an old style of popular journalistic or historical writing that seems to have all but faded away now. During it’s heyday, it was perfected by the British. For many years Short was a journalist for the British press.

Mao ultimately comes across as evil, but not because he was monster. It was Mao’s humanity that led him to make decisions which caused the death of millions and left millions of more lives ruined.

When I lived in China, more than one of my students told me that, for all of his problems, Mao was an incredible poet. I found this quite odd. At the time i knew nothing about poetry, let alone Chinese poetry. Now it makes sense. Mao approached politics with an artist’s sensibility. History was his canvass, and that canvass grew to an unmanageable size as he grew more powerful. It was this attitude that allowed him to believe that, contrary to all Marxist thought, the base could be temporarily exchanged for the superstructure, that through sheer will the Party could change China’s material reality. Reading about Mao’s approach to economics and the Great Leap Forward, I was reminded of D’Annunzio cheering on with moist eyes as if at the opera as he watched wave after wave of Italian peasant throw themselves on Austro-Hungarian lines during the First World War I. Just as a poet, or a philosopher, brings a new world into being with his work, so would Mao through politics. This megalomaniacal approach led to anywhere from 30 to 50 million dead. Never again would Mao grapple with economics.

Very informative but extremely dense. You sometimes get lost in the weeds during the pivotal moments in Mao and China's history. Yet, if you want details into how this rug is weaved then this is the book to contemplate. Interesting read.

Mao's impact on the world is hard to describe. It is undeniable that he radically changed China, but today China can hardly be described as Maoist. Probably the closest real life example of Big Brother as he might have existed during the Revolution in Orwell's 1984, rather than the deified idea that people feared later. Basically, your life depended on being in line with Mao's thought, which was unfortunate, since Mao's thought changed without much rhyme or reason, and Mao's way of testing people was to not express his thoughts and see who would magically read his mind.

As for this book, it's a decent read. Short spent too much time detailing the various unions and groups Mao joined prior to the 1930's, so much of the first two hundred pages or so is worth skipping over. Also a bit disappointed by the lack of depth of what Mao did during the entire decade of the 1940's. That said, Short hits his stride in describing China under Mao during the period of 1950-76. Short makes an apt comparison at the end that also struck me: Mao's model, the first emperor of the Qin, unified China with horrific violence and his dynasty was short lived. However, it was followed by the Han dynasty and a Golden Age for China. Maoism is dead; has China entered a new golden age?

China is undoubtedly a major power in this world. We cannot know where they are going unless we know where they have been.

Excelente, no se moderniza un pais sin costo. No comparto nada con la izquierda pero creer que en el mundo político actual no pasa lo mismo solo que sin tanta sangre es mera inocencia.

Only in Urbana

Mao Tse-tung è stato uno dei personaggi più influenti della storia del XX secolo, il Grande Timoniere di un paese che da solo componeva un quarto della popolazione mondiale e si estendeva su una superficie grande due volte l’Europa, un politico capace di ricattare URSS e USA e mito generazionale anche in Occidente. Ma anche figura arcana, uomo che non dava confidenze a nessuno e ordiva intrighi assurdamente sottili. Ieratico e disumano, che ordinava massacri con assoluta nonchalance e spazzava via chiunque gli si mettesse contro.

La biografia-fiume di Philip Short è molto coraggiosa: potrebbe limitarsi a fare quello che han fatto altri, cioè constatare l’immensa complessità del personaggio, oppure (come fece Snow) riconoscergli quel quid irrazionale che è la ‘forza del destino‘. Invece il giornalista inglese va oltre e tenta di offrire una possibile spiegazione della psicologia maoista, del perché Mao pensasse o facesse certe cose; dei suoi meccanismi mentali e della sua costituzione culturale. La parte iniziale del libro (a mio giudizio, la più affascinante) ci accompagna alla scoperta delle origini del leader cinese, della sua infanzia contadina, del suo odio per il padre, nel contesto di una Cina arretrata e confuciana; si passa ai suoi studi, invero assai tormentati per le ristrettezze economiche, ai suoi lavoretti per procurarsi da mangiare, alle sue aspirazioni. Si scopre, della giovane società cinese a cavallo tra i due secoli, un quadro piuttosto inconsueto, ricco di giovani speranzosi per il futuro, odiatori della tradizione, affascinati dall’Occidente. Uno dei punti forti del libro è questo: la dimostrazione di come Mao non sia stato un unicum, bensì l’esponente più fedele della sua generazione.

Secondo Short, Mao sarebbe stato ossessionato per tutta la vita da un pensiero, come molti di noi hanno un tarlo che li rode senza mai placarsi: la vita come eterno conflitto tra gli opposti, e quindi, in un certo senso, l’identità, degli opposti. Un’idea che gli è nata – udite udite – non dalla tradizione cinese (l’odiato Confucio parlava di armonia, tra gli opposti) ma dalla lettura dei filosofi occidentali (es. Rousseau, Dewey, A. Smith) e persino da Clausewitz, di cui Mao ripeterà spesso l’aforisma ‘la guerra è la politica fatta con le armi, la politica è la guerra senza armi‘. Non c’è discorso politico, saggio, articolo in cui Mao in maniera più o meno esplicita non ripeta questo ritornello. Ed è questa idea ossessiva che, secondo Short, avrebbe reso Mao un pessimo governante una volta finita la guerra: perché, per lui, la guerra non finiva mai davvero, e l’eccessiva pace gli destava sospetti.

Al di là dell’espressione apatica e del pragmatismo estremo, il Mao di Short è stato un uomo profondamente inquieto. Una vittima dello scetticismo filosofico e della fame di cibo e di vita con cui ha dovuto fare i conti in gioventù. Ma anche, nonostante tutto (e intendo davvero TUTTO, compresi i crimini) vero artefice della Cina insaziabile e irrequieta dei decenni successivi alla sua morte.

“Noi siamo favorevoli all’abolizione delle guerre; non vogliamo la guerra. Ma non si può abolire la guerra se non mediante la guerra. Affinché non esistano più fucili, occorre il fucile”
(Mao Tse-tung)

The typical "great man" biography tends to be either hagiographic or tendentious, especially when dealing with titanic personalities. Mao: A Life is that rare exception. Philip Short has written a balanced, thorough (to a fault, some have said) and very well written. He gives Mao his due as a military strategist, but pulls no punches when addressing such disastrous policies as the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution.

Yes, it is long, but it is far from a slog. So gifted a writer is Short that I was never bored, and so thorough a researcher that no aspect of Mao's long, remarkable life is glossed over. It's obvious that Short cares deeply about China and the Chinese people; Mao's myriad policies and pronouncements are seen not only from the eyes of Mao and his Politburo but also those of that quarter of humanity that witnessed them, and often suffered from them.

Short wisely includes a "Dramatis Personae" section, the better to keep track of the dozens of characters who populate this epic drama.

So don't be intimidated by the length of this book. Its heft is proportional to the long, controversial and momentous career of Chairman Mao.

Sorry but I just could not get passed all of the Chinese names. I could't keep anyone straight and since it was like 900 pages long, I just gave up.

Superb narrative of Mao’s life. Gives you the good and the bad. Incredible amount of detail. The life of the twenty-eight stroke student spans too wide for a single read of this work.

Jared