book is antiMao, for sure, but from what I've read in other books, that seems to be justified, Mao is responsible for the worst manmade famine in all of historymillion 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 wellresearched and informative, An excellent read thorough, painstaking research and incisive insight presented in a manner that tells the story of one of the leading historical figures of the twentieth century.
Even readers with little or no knowledge of Chinese history will conclude this book with a thorough understanding of how we got to where we are today in the Far East, and of the inside life of this most evil of men.
Like Hitler and Stalin, he not only wiped out entire communities in their millions, but also tended to exert a highly destructive influence on anyone unfortunate enough to get close to him.
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 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'spage 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: sitelink com/maotheunknown
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.
. . This is a comprehensive hatchet job on the Western myth of Mao's "making of modern China", It should be read by everyone who grew up in the postwar years, with the recurrent fascination our society had with the internal convulsions of the "People's Republic" and its growing influence on its neighbours.
It is well written I noticed a few repetitions, but nothing annoying, and it kept my interest throughout,
I'm sure the passion that comes through the Mao's relentless examination of Mao's behaviour and its consequences comes from Jung Chang's experiences read "Wild Swans", and of course it makes for a onesided picture.
Maybe examples of statesmanship and concern for the welfare of the Chinese people, or even of individual colleagues, are to be found in Mao's past, and have been omitted because they didn't fit the picture.
But after reading this book, frankly, I doubt it there doesn't seem to have been any time for good deeds,
I am not a historian, and historians are divided on some of the claims see Wikipedia, but the authors do give extensive references and have interviewed many participants in the events, some very close to Mao.
The details are given in appendixes, which make the book look even longer than it is, and maybe give it a scholarly appearance that isn't borne out by its tone.
But they do show the authors' seriousness of purpose and willingness to expose their work to examination and criticism, Mao
Shocking, traumatizing, depressing, textbookish but brilliant, This is the sequal to Jung Chang's first international best seller, "Wild Swans Three Daughters of China",
It was not an easy read and certainly a challenge to empathize with Jung Chang's anger and open contempt for Mao, Her intense personal feelings established this book as a personal journey of discovery which took her ten years of intense research, Although most of the facts can be verified, there are others, supplied by people who wished to remain anonymous, that prevent this book from being regarded as a historical masterpiece.
Yet, being known for her honesty and meticulous skills as researcher, there is no doubt in my mind that all her sources are trustworthy and true.
The actual relationship between Stalin and his newly acquired 'handhorse', Mao, is revealed in this book and how the events in both countries were masterbrained in Moscow.
When Mao decides to go on his own and imposes his version of Communism on a country, the Russian counterpart withdrew, due to the excessive violence used in Maoism.
The latter's success inspired him to go bigger than China and rule the world with the events very well documented in this book,
It took me several weeks to finish this book, It was so demoralising and shocking on the mind and body that I really had to gather up courage and persistants to finish it.
The tone in the book is much different from her first book, which made it more difficult to absorb, The content is amazing though especially since she had access to Russian archives which closed soon after her research was complete, She had, therefor, a rare insight into documents that not many people will ever see in their lives, She also interviewed people close to Mao, a rare opportunity,
The book is described as "An atom bomb of a book" and it truly is,
For people who still believe in the ideal of communism, this book will be a lesson in how it did not work and why.
For those who do not know anything about real communism, this book will be equally an eyeopener, After acquiring this knowledge and background it will be very hard for anyone to defend it, Besides, other forms of communism exist, but none of those models have SUCCESSFUL written over it, Reading this book through Jung's eyes, after reading her own personal family history in "Wild Swans", it is difficult to demand objectivity of her in this book.
That is my personal opinion,
It is the one ism in the world which killed more people than all the world wars from the beginning of time combined.
You must have a real interest in world affairs to read this book, This history is violent, shocking, torturing, excruciating, mind blowing, What Mao did to his own people, even his family, defies every single law of freedom and logic, and even drove all three his children eventually insane.
The world knew about Hitler, but after "Mao the Unknown Story" was published, Hitler's life and deeds became Valentine's stories in comparison.
After all, Maoism lead to the deaths ofmillion Chinese of famine alone andmillion people in total until,
Just like when I read Wild Swans byt Jung Chang, there were times when my eyes almost crossed when she is writing of politics and military maneuvers.
However, I felt that anyone interested inth Century China should read both, There has been some controversy about the accuracy of some of the information, but overall, from what I have read, there is some new information that has been verified Russia's involvement in Chinese politics during the civil war, for example.
Sometimes, I think Jung Chang's personal involvement colors her commentary, There are times when she states that Mao is a monster or coldheartededitorial and personal commentary that is not only unnecessary but distracting, Anyone who can tackle this hefty book is quite capable of drawing these conclusions on their own and not having it hammered into their skulls.
Still, I found it a riveting though not easy book to read, Not easy because of it's length and complicated explanations of political intrigues and military machinations but also because of the coldhearted way in which Mao ruledand nearly ruinedChina.
But it is a good book for anyone who wants to understand recent Chinese history,
How do I review a book like this I don't know, because I have decidedly mixed feelings about Mao myself, Jung Chang wrote the amazing "Wild Swans" biography/autobiography, but her voice there falls far short of the voice here, I'll be honest. It's very, very biased. She presents the work as factual when it's not actually quite that factual, Much of her interpretation and statements are based off of things like, "a dear friend of Mao's said, . . " and yet, the friend is not named or referenced, Just that alone made me uneasy,
It was an interesting read, don't get me wrong, I felt it was worth the time I spent on it, but I can't say that Jung did the best she could have, Her biases and hatred for Mao was alltoo clear and for any book that claims to be a 'true' story, that makes it wrong in my books.
Obviously, others will disagree with me and I know many people who find it a brilliant piece of work, The amount of work Jung put into it is admirable, but I can't say that this didn't bother me,
Overall I'd say read it and judge for yourself, This book is a catalog of a dirty criminal, It felt at times like I was reading about ancient Roman emperors, I was given a copy of 'Mao: The Unknown Story' for Christmas in, I readpages during January, found the Long March so depressing that I put the book aside for more than three and half years, then read the remainingpages in two days.
This isn't atypical behaviour for me and also reflects the nature of the book, It is written in highly readable and involving style, yet the content is horribly depressing, I have been very fond of Jung Chang's writing since I came across sitelinkWild Swans: Three Daughters of China as a teenager and was astounded.
I reread it repeatedly and became fascinated by China'sth century history, I even tried to read a hagiography of Deng Xiao Ping by his daughter when I wasorsitelinkDeng Xiaoping: My Father, This is nonetheless the most comprehensive biography of Mao that I've ever read and an unsurprisingly chilling indictment of the privations and horrors that he put China through.
I was already aware of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, but knew very little about Mao's foreign policy, relationship with Stalin, and nuclear armament programme.
Chapters dealing with these issues were thus the most intellectually interesting,
The most memorable and horrifying parts, though, concerned Mao's systems of repression and control of China's population, which has the major consequence of mass starvation.
I had not realised that while China went through the largest known famine in human history fromto, Mao's regime was selling and gifting food products abroad in an effort to build international status.
Previous reading ascribed the famines more to disruption and loss of agricultural productivity due to reorganisation of communal farms and senseless pursuit of steel production during the Great Leap Forward.
However, it seems that these were minor problems compared with the mass requisitions of food for export, It was not that food production didn't happen, but that the food was then taken away for political uses rather than basic subsistence, This book estimates that aroundmillion people died in thefamine, a simply unimaginable number, Once the famine abated due to policy changes, food security in rural areas remained very fragile, Food was still used as a political tool, rather than for subsistence,
When explaining Mao's systems of repression, it is impossible to avoid comparisons with other totalitarian regimes, I found some striking passages doing just that:
Mao intended most of the population children and adults alike to witness the killing during the'campaign to suppress counterrevolutionaries'.
His aim was to scare and brutalise the entire population, in a way that went much further than Hitler or Stalin, who largely kept their foulest crimes out of sight.
The orchestration of fear under Mao's regime is extraordinary in its distinctiveness, During the Cultural Revolution, he unleashed an army of indoctrinated teenagers and students the Red Guards and Rebels against the educational and cultural sectors of the country and then against his own party.
Once these persecutions had served his purpose, he replaced the purged cadres with army personnel and exiled the Red Guards and Rebels to the labour in the countryside.
Secret police had a much less significant role under his regime than in Soviet states oppression was visible and crowdsourced, to use ast century term.
Throughout the biography, the overwhelming impression the reader gets of Mao is a combination of narcissism and callousness, Obviously these are traits shared by just about every authoritarian ruler, yet they seem to reach particular extremes in Mao, I could not help thinking of Donald Trump when reading about Mao's utter disregard for human lives, paranoia, cruelty towards rivals, and nepotism spurred not by love but by fixation on personal loyalty.
Mao also lied constantly and refused to ever accept responsibility for anything, Such similarities should not be overstated, of course, While their political programmes are both characterised by narcissistic equating of self and national interest, Mao wanted China to be recognised as a world power by other nations.
Trump appears wholly disinterested in America's international reputation, This paragraph about legacy nonetheless made me wonder what Trump's death will leave behind:
Mao was not interested in posterity, Back in, he had written, 'Some say one has a responsibility for history, I don't believe it People like me are not building achievements to leave for future generations, . . ' These remained his views throughout his life, In, after visiting Lenin's mausoleum, Mao said to his entourage that the superb preservation of the corpse was only for the sake of others it was irrelevant to Lenin.
Once Lenin died, he felt nothing, and it did not matter to him how his corpse was kept,
When Mao died, he left neither a will nor an heir and, in face, unlike most Chinese parents, especially Chinese emperors, he was indifferent about having an heir, which was extremely unusual.
This also marks a contrast to the totalitarian dynasty in North Korea,
After a very detailed start that spendspages recounting how Mao came to power in China, the book ends extremely abruptly with his death.
There is a two sentence epilogue stating that China's communist party still promulgates the myth of Mao as a great leader, I'd expected a chapter on the immediate aftermath of his death, but to be fair this is already a thorough and extensive biography, I found it an informative and devastating insight into China's history from thes tos,years of it shaped to a great extent by one man.
'Mao: The Unknown Story' is not interested in Mao's ideology and gives the impression he had little interest in it himself, except as a tool to promote his interests.
What it seeks to document are his actions and choices in pursuit of power and prestige, which were consistently cruel, violent, and ruthless, .