Rating: 
Summary: A very good account of Mao
Review: Overall, Philip Short does a fine job of analysing Mao and the struggle for communist China. Despite taking a generally sympathetic view of Mao, he remains objective throughout, never ignoring or diminishing Mao's sinister side. Furthermore Short does a good job of investigating how much Mao was directly behind the many purges revealed through the course of the book. He also reveals Mao's fascinating development from strident feminist, anarchist and military hero to ruthless purger, sexist and control freak. Where Short does error occasionally is in his emphasis. Sometimes he designates paragraphs to minor squabbling, then reveals a major change in only one short sentence, which will cause confusion to those who like to skim read. He also donates hundreds of pages to the communist army build up, then only ten or so to the actual post WWII battle for supreme victory over Kai-Shek. However don't let these quibbles put you off- for those that want a greater understanding of Maoism and the amazing Red Army victory encapsulating the legendary and heroic 'Long March', you will find this book very enlightening. I would not recommend it to those of you who are particularly right wing as this book isn't the denunciation of Mao as a tailed devil you'd probably want to read, thus you'll only get all hot and bothered then right a dismissive review giving the book one star. Short's conclusion is highly satisfactory, rightly stating that Mao did not belong in the same category of the likes of Hitler or Stalin, whilst certainly not belonging in the same group as Gandhi or such like. The book depicts the good and evil sides of Mao, and the struggle his conscience eventually lost.
Rating:
Summary: Unbalanced but realistic, informative, and insightful
Review: Philip Short draws a realistic picture of Mao Zedong; he strips away much mystery surrounding Mao and leaves a simple austere portrait of a complex man. Today, Mao tends to be either lionized or demonized but Short avoids sensationalism and sticks to presenting us with information, insights, and informed opinion. The chapters on Mao's childhood and youth are particularly interesting. Short shows us how a well-to-do peasant with one or two farm hands lived at the end of the 19th century, and how an eldest son (Mao) was expected to behave. He shows us what a large Chinese town looked like at the turn of the 19th/20th century and how a young man would have felt seeing it for the first time. Short forces us to remember the obvious: at 14 years old, Mao was a boy, albeit a bright one. A good example of the insights Short gives us can be found in his treatment of Mao's schooling. Mao was taught to read, write, and think in a traditional Confucian village school. The loud and mindless rote repetition methods worked, but they impress neither the author nor the reader. The insight we get from Short's presentation is that youths who in the 1960s memorized Mao's Little Red Book were following the same pedagogy, substituting Mao for Confucius, and youth groups for village schools. As an example of realism, Short deflates some of the sex scandals around Mao. Yes, Mao enjoyed the company of young women, but these were enthusiastic communist girls, more like rock groupies than members of an imperial harem. Where the book loses its balance is that not enough is made of Mao's real failures, both as a leader and as a human being. Short faces these failures square on, but late and he does not give them nearly enough emphasis. Short's evaluation of Mao as being not as bad as Hitler or Stalin fails to convince us, perhaps because the effect Mao had on China was as bad as Stalin's on Russia: millions of dead and a crippled economy that could not sustain the population.
Rating:
Summary: Determination, stubborness, fate...
Review: Philip Short's 'Mao: A Life' is an amazingly researched biography. Short enlightens the reader on a large portion of Chinese history. Great detail is given to the most important periods of Chairman Mao's life. The revolution of the Red Army through the awful mistakes made as a leader of the most populous nation ever were written in a way to keep you interested. I recommend this title for those interested in: Chinese history, Socialism, Soviet history, Mao as a commander and leader, and those that are infatuated with history in general.
Rating:
Summary: Determination, stubborness, fate...
Review: Philip Short's 'Mao: A Life' is an amazingly researched biography. Short enlightens the reader on a large portion of Chinese history. Great detail is given to the most important periods of Chairman Mao's life. The revolution of the Red Army through the awful mistakes made as a leader of the most populous nation ever were written in a way to keep you interested. I recommend this title for those interested in: Chinese history, Socialism, Soviet history, Mao as a commander and leader, and those that are infatuated with history in general.
Rating: 
Summary: This Mao, bu yao cos' bu hao!
Review: Sorry, but I couldn't make it through this one. A shame because the book began with such promise. Alas, I got bogged down by the somewhat turgid and unimaginative prose which Short utilizes to kick the shins of the hapless reader with. The book also suffers from an interesting method of making attributions, and the quirky and somewhat erratic use of old and new-style romanization. Short says that he chose to use the old, Wade-Giles I suppose, romanization where the close association of the old name to the subject renders the name otherwise unintelligible. Thus, it took me a double take to recognize Short's 'GMD' as the 'KMT' or KuoMinTang. It also causes one's teeth to gnash when a paragraph contains different names transcribed in both romanization standards.
I feel that the author wished to make us to figuratively live the Long March and could think of no better way than to drone on and on around a central theme as a bee would buzz around a flower when it is unsure whether to land and take its pollen until we have quite forgotten what central point was being made. In fact, when people ask I always admit to having survived it, the march I mean. It would be absurd to claim to anyone who's picked it up that I had finished the book. Here's why it is so bad: If this is meant to be a scholarly treatise, this book should have been heavily footnoted and accompanied by an extensive and traditional bibliography. If this book is meant to be popular history then it should be written in a lively manner that makes its point with grace, charm and wit and none of the hemming and hawing that Short seems to get caught up in.
Rating:
Summary: This Mao, bu yao cos' bu hao!
Review: Sorry, but I couldn't make it through this one. A shame because the book began with such promise. Alas, I got bogged down by the somewhat turgid and unimaginative prose which Short utilizes to kick the shins of the hapless reader with. The book also suffers from an interesting method of making attributions, and the quirky and somewhat erratic use of old and new-style romanization. Short says that he chose to use the old, Wade-Giles I suppose, romanization where the close association of the old name to the subject renders the name otherwise unintelligible. Thus, it took me a double take to recognize Short's 'GMD' as the 'KMT' or KuoMinTang. It also causes one's teeth to gnash when a paragraph contains different names transcribed in both romanization standards.
I feel that the author wished to make us to figuratively live the Long March and could think of no better way than to drone on and on around a central theme as a bee would buzz around a flower when it is unsure whether to land and take its pollen until we have quite forgotten what central point was being made. In fact, when people ask I always admit to having survived it, the march I mean. It would be absurd to claim to anyone who's picked it up that I had finished the book. Here's why it is so bad: If this is meant to be a scholarly treatise, this book should have been heavily footnoted and accompanied by an extensive and traditional bibliography. If this book is meant to be popular history then it should be written in a lively manner that makes its point with grace, charm and wit and none of the hemming and hawing that Short seems to get caught up in.
Rating:
Summary: Life of a tyrant
Review: This book portrays the life of the man who oversaw the conversion of China from a country fragmented into provinces controlled by war lords and a weak Nationalist government, vulnerable to Japan and European Nations to a centralized powerful communist state The book recounts how Mao was born and raised in China when it was still an empire. His school education consisted largely of rote learning, including verbatim recitations of complex Chinese literary classics. Clearly a bright and intelligent child, Mao later became a schoolteacher. For most of his life Mao wrote poetry, which some have said was hackneyed and others have described as good. As Mao grew older, China descended into revolution and anarchy. While most Chinese became Nationalists Mao became a communist. The belief of communists at the time was that a small conspiratorial party could inflame the more radical sections of the country the workers to bring about a revolution. Held in the spell of this formula, the Chinese Communists tried again and again to inspire workers' revolts, but failed. Mao headed off to the countryside in Hunan in the early thirties, where he organized a peasant army and within a few years controlled an area the size of Belgium. It was clear that the communists represented the most significant challenge to the ruling Nationalist Party controlled by Chiang Kai-shek. To ward off this danger, Chiang organized huge armies to fight the communists. He then launched a series of " bandit suppression campaigns." Mao successfully defeated three armies sent by Chiang to defeat him. The fourth army was the largest. German advisors to the Nationalist commanders developed a successful strategy of building a ring of fortifications around the communists. This web of blockhouses and pillboxes prevented the war of movement and surprise that Mao had turned to his advantage. The Nationalists crept forward day by day strangling the communists. At last they decided on a desperate move of breaking out and marching to north China. This military maneuver was to become known as the long march. On reaching the north, the Communists were eventually saved by the Japanese invasion of China. That invasion forced Chiang into an uneasy alliance that allowed the communists to increase their power and to triumph in the civil war that broke out in 1949. This book is interesting as it fills out the story and adds a lot which explains why Mao developed as he did. Other works have suggested that Mao's military success led him over time to solidifying his position in the communist party and controlling it from the 30's. The reality is different. Despite Mao's success in winning victory after victory in Hunan, he was actually removed from power shortly before the Nationalist offensive that led to the long march by Bo Gu, Zhou Enlai and Otto Braun. He regained power during the long march as a result of the failure of the three who took over from him to defeat Chiang and the enormous casualties that they had incurred during the break out. Even during the time he led the army in Hunan, Mao was subject to a series of crazy orders from his communist superiors in Shanghai. These orders were based on a belief that a workers' revolt was inevitable and sought to try to get Mao to carry out military maneuvers based on a hoped uprising which never occurred. The fantasy of a workers revolt led to orders to the army which placed in danger of defeat and with no prospect of success. It is perhaps no surprise that later in life Mao distrusted experts. Mao's personal life appears to have been filled with tragedy. His first marriage was arranged and he refused to consummate it. He left his second wife and married a young woman who was a fellow revolutionary. When Mao had started to achieve victories in Hunan, the Nationalists undertook a vicious campaign directed at Mao personally. They captured his second wife, and although by this time Mao had left her, she refused to renounce him and was publicly beheaded. The graves of Mao's parents were also dug up and desecrated. During the long march Mao's third wife gave birth a number of times. The children had to be given up to peasant families on the way. In the years to come, after the victory in the civil war Mao tried to find these lost children but was not successful. Of his other children, a son died in the Korean War and his remaining son suffered from mental illness and spent all of his life in a mental institution. The book also reveals for the first time that in Hunan and later after the long march in Yan'an, Mao ordered the torture and execution of large numbers of his supporters. These campaigns of torture and execution were similar to the terror of Joseph Stalin. Party members would be tortured to produce confessions of belonging to opposition groups, despite the fact that any groups named clearly did not exist. Mao's first "terror" in fact pre-dated that of Stalin. This account of Mao's life suggests that the success of the communists in China was the result of an iron discipline based on terror. Mao's career after taking control of China consisted of a long succession of disasters. For instance, the Great Leap Forward led to a collapse in economic growth. The forced collectivisation of agriculture and the removal and destruction of the landlord class led to famines in which between 30 to 60 million people are reported to have died. Moreover while the Cultural Revolution led to a collapse of the ruling institutions in China, the army was required to take over management of the State for a time. On Mao's death there was a complete reversal of all his policies by Deng Xiaoping much to the relief of the people. Those, who on Mao's orders, had run the Cultural Revolution were imprisoned. This book is an important portrait of man of importantce but not greatness.
Rating: 
Summary: In depth, but not too in depth, basic, but not too basic
Review: This extremely researched chronicle teaches you everything you would want to know about Mao. But theres more to it than that. What this book tells you from the very beginning on the inside flaps of the hardcover addition, is that Mao is the father of modern China. Many Chinese in America act as though Sun Yatsen or Chiang Kaishek of the Guomindang was the father of modern China but are lying to prevent hostility. What this book also mentions is that Mao was responsible for cultural change for the better: women were out of the homes and into public life such as in medicine, politics, and society. But this is not a pro-Mao book. I wouldn't speak highly of it if it was. Mao was responsible - as this book mentions - for the deaths of millions more people than any other person in human history.
My favorite part of the book is the conclusion. It explains how Mao is viewed in china today.
Read this book if you like history.
Rating: 
Summary: better than others but still wretched
Review: this is a better bio, but only in regard to early Mao-- and even here there is too much shoddy pop-psychologizing He is esp weak on Mao-in-power. He relies much too heavily on disreputable, gossipy accounts, like the "unofficial" fantasy book by Dr Li. There is nothing but personality analysis here, and no account of Chinese society at large, what the masses of people were doing, what Mao's deeper, social and ethical motivations were, etc. Overall, too much money and too many useless pages for such a breezy, crappy book. there simply no good bios of Mao, at least in English
Rating: 
Summary: Good Work but bad Works Cited
Review: This is the first comprehensive book on Mao to be published after Dr. Li’s account. Short incorporates some of Li’s recollection into the character analysis of Mao in sort of a Freudian sex paradigm. Short seems to have been able to get a lot of access for his research without having to compromise too much in what he published: (the ever frustrating rub of studying China – you need access to uncover the truth, but if you print too much of the truth, Chinese authorities cut off your access) Perhaps this is the reason this book is far more detailed in the pre-1949 Mao than the Mao we love to hate after the civil war, and Short just paintbrushes over the cultural revolution. Overall, the book is well detailed and objective. However, Short does seem to take some of his sources too seriously and there are some obvious references to some seriously hot air from more than one Chinese official’s tall tale. My favorite was the following “One of Zhou Enlai’s military analysts was convinced that the US Commander, General Douglas MacArthur, would make his move at Inchon, on the narrow waist of Korea, just south of the 38th parallel, the nominal dividing line between North and South. When Mao looked at the map, the young analyst convinced him too” (427) Right! I believe that like I believe that stockbroker who calls and said that he became bearish on the Nasdaq in the first quarter of 2000. In a time where famous authors like Doris Goodwin and Steven Ambrose are being caught in scandals of plagiarism, the poor job that Short does in citing his work is a major problem with this book. The entire book includes no usable reference system to cite the sources. Not only is this true for parts of the text that he obviously depends on an outside source of some kind, but even block quotes. The book has a few end notes that only have a small quote from the text to connect it with rather than a number. This could be a publisher’s error rather than Short’s, but it is frustrating none the less.
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