-Efecto halo y contrasentidos.-

Género. Biografía.

Lo que nos cuenta. Biografía del líder comunista chino Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung).

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Riveting and action-packed. There are perhaps only a handful of figures whose portrait can arouse as strong a feeling as that of the enigmatic founder of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong. There is no denying Mao’s import as a historical figure. He was a ruthless politician, a brilliant military strategist, and a studious philosopher.

Before I started reading this excellent biography, I thought Mao was a foolish, uneducated tyrant. I was surprised to learn that in fact, he was a serious scholar who even dabbled in poetry. In my mind, it was his filiality to erroneous Marxist revolutionary principles, including (but not limited to) class warfare, materialism, and an aversion to tradition, that led to the hundreds of millions of lives lost during his reign.

Short’s afterword, which includes his thoughts on other works on modern Chinese history, was much appreciated. All in all, this is a readable, academic and reliable account of the man who made modern China.

Short...

This was my second book in a row by this author and this one was much better than the biography of Pol Pot. Even in the book on Pol Pot, some of the most interesting and well written sections were those that featured the Chinese leader.

I think this was a good introduction-800+ page introduction- to the ideology and life of Mao Zedong. It outlined how the communist party was formed and its cooperation and civil war with the Guomindang. The author did his research well enough to show the influence of Lenin, Stalin and the Soviet Union on the party which informed much of its early politics.

The second half of the book was interesting but was weaker. During the periods of the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution, I felt like I was listening to hearsay and rumour. This is almost certainly due to documents being much less readily available than in his earlier life. It could feel like the biographer was writing about one person for most of the book and then suddenly someone suffering from multiple personality disorder.

This book was either too short and should’ve gone into equal detail across Mao’s life (the detail in the first 40 years far out weighs that Over the last 40) or too long and spent too much time in those same early years. This can happen in histories and biographies and I understand the challenge but it has to be balanced from beginning to end.

I am studying every autocrat I can in these dark despotic times so that I can remind others what to look for. And I picked up this big book, on the basis of Short's excellent volume on Putin (which deftly blended biographical details with Russian history), only to find this work to be largely deficient in depth and rigor. Yes, we do learn that Mao was fairly prodigious with his plans. But Short really hasn't presented us with the casus belli for why Mao went more Stalinist in locking away his enemies. The Long March, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution are all, more or less, skimmed over, almost as if Short was writing this book way too fast to meet a deadline. At first, I thought the fault landed with me. But then I jumped to another one of my fat history books, became incredibly engaged with hit, and realized that the problem was Philip Short. I was so disappointed with how cursory this book feels, even at its oppressive length, that I really wish my time had been devoted to a Richard Evans or a Stephen Kotkin treatment instead. There are a few choice bits, but there's no other way of putting it. Short truly comes up short here.

Some of Short's passages on battlefield movements and Red Guard in-fighting get a bit hairy -- reduced to he-did she-did instead of reflection on the movements themselves -- but mostly it's a nuanced and detailed work from one of our best historians, particularly when he writes about China's constantly changing goals and actions.

The book starts with Mao's roots, his early life, his education and his upbringing, all of which provides a basis for the remainder of the book. It discusses his early anarchist tendencies and how with the aid of fellow students and teachers this develops into socialist activism and ideology. The remainder of the book covers the more well known subjects including the beginnings of the Chinese Communist party and their relationship with the Guamindong nationalists, the Long March, the civil war, the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution.

The notes and references at the end show that Philip Short could quite easily have made this 1000+ pages, but he's clearly put effort into sticking to prescient topics for the average reader who has limited knowledge of Chinese history and modern day China, which is precisely what makes it an excellent and well developed introduction into Mao and the life he led. He doesn't pretend to read Mao's mind or attempt to make this into a fictional historical page turner but rather sticks to the core events that transpired to have an effect on Mao and China as a whole between the early 1900s to the 1970s. That said, he doesn't skimp on detail being a 700 page book.

What really makes this a fascinating read is the way the author expresses a cold neutrality to Mao as a person, a politician, and the legacy he has left behind, its refreshing for a political biography when so many similar type of books consciously or unwittingly attempt to impose their authors biases on the reader. He allows the reader to pretty much form their own opinion on who exactly Mao was and what he did for China. If there is a downside it would probably be for those who already have a detailed knowledge of Chinese history and may feel their isn't much new to learn, but its difficult to judge as it really covers a lot of events. Overall highly recommended whether you have any interest in modern Chinese history or not.

I found this book to be a a surprisingly engaging read. It’s likely impossible to write an objective biography for someone as monumentally important (and controversial) as Mao, but Short gets pretty damn close. Of course there are trade offs to “objectivity:” a biography without a clear slant can trend towards boredom and become a collection of primary source quotes and descriptions without an argument behind them. I came out the other side with a much deeper understanding of Mao and Chinese history, and I’m excited to learn more about this period.

Many other reviewers correctly point out that the book is really biased towards the early revolution, so the Great Leap Forward and cultural revolution don’t get nearly as much coverage, so that’s where I’ll probably concentrate next.

Couldn't tough this one out. As many other reviewers have noted, this is both very dry and very long. If I had come to this book with a better understanding of who Mao was and a sense of where China was, I probably would have had a better appreciation. Definitely for the historian, not for the average person.

It's real. Everything happened, Mao Zedong once was a original listener and then became a total dictator. At that time, all the horrible, crazy things are truly happened, but if we do not bear in mind that history, do not have our own moments of quiet introspection, everything will be repeated in the near future.

这的确是真实的，所有的一切都发生了。毛泽东从原来的倾听者变为十足的独裁者。在那个时代,一切恐怖的、狂热的事情都真实地发生了,但如果我们不将那段历史铭记、不去静静地反思那段历史，一切都会在不久的将来重演。

Mao's bloody revolution revealed
Written by Philip Short
Directed by Adrian Maben

Mao's Bloody Revolution revealed is a faithful historical documentary, all the clips are from real history, shocking to my heart.

Mao's Bloody Revolution revealed是一部忠实历史的纪录片，所有的片段都来自真实的历史记录，震撼到我心.

an eye opener to the history of china, and i learnt much about the suffering of the chinese people and the role mao played in it. Extremely well written and was never bored, and yet it seems like the book was still too short. The history of china is simply too complex, but its a good starting point