Mao: A Biography

Rating:
Summary: A History of the Mao era.
Review: After reading Wild Swans I wanted to find out a bit more about China in the time of Mao, so I read this book about him. It's really good, in that I found it quite objective. In a way I found myself respecting his original beliefs, but he was hopeless at putting anything into practice. I only gave the book 4 stars, because at times it's difficult reading.

Rating:
Summary: A History of the Mao era.
Review: After reading Wild Swans I wanted to find out a bit more about China in the time of Mao, so I read this book about him. It's really good, in that I found it quite objective. In a way I found myself respecting his original beliefs, but he was hopeless at putting anything into practice. I only gave the book 4 stars, because at times it's difficult reading.

Rating:
Summary: Good but dense
Review: I ploughed into Terrill's Mao biography with great eagerness, as his account of Jiang Qing, Mao's notorious wife, is one of the best China biographies around.

I was disappointed. Disclaimer, I didn't even finish it. Perhaps Mao is a more complicated subject, but the historical discourse, Communist theoretical deconstruction, etc, just bogged me down. I only got as far as the Xian incident before having to return the book.

Of the parts I read, though, the account of Mao's youth was compelling, and I suspect later periods of Cultural Revolution and Zhongnanhai power struggles would also prove so.

Mao is, of course, a figure of history hard to capture as a human being. Terrill does a good job of dissecting the motivations of the man behind the myth, although such exercises cannot rise about conjecture. This book is worth reading, but not casually: it is highly academic, and requires the commitment of a weight loss program. Stick with it, you'll probably be rewarded.