Rating: 
Summary: Superbly written, interesting and objective.
Review: I never thought that I could love a true account of tragedy, suffering, and grave injustice, but I have to admit that I love "Life and Death in Shanghai". I don't mean that I read this book for entertainment or recommend it to everybody. Like some of the works of Solzhenitsyn or Elie Weisel, the subject of Nien Cheng's book is real, painful, and sometimes very difficult to read. Yet I find myself constantly rereading "Life and Death in Shanghai" and it is one of the few books I refuse to part with. How can this be?Nien Cheng writes of personal loss, suffering, and injustice with unusually lucid and mature prose. She is impressive as story teller, an historian, but most of all as a writer. One of the most effective qualities of Nien Cheng's writing is the remarkable restraint she employs when describing unfair and frankly inhumane actions perpetrated against her and her family. She describes her arrest, captivity, and daily efforts to challenge her tormentors with cool objectivity. One of the most impressive parts of the book is the account of how Nien Cheng studied Chairman Mao's collected works in prison. Despite the fact that Mao's policies had personally harmed her and were tearing China apart, she studied his works in earnest and evaluated them objectively. She concluded that Mao was a brilliant guerrilla warfare strategist but that he was only capable of destruction, not creativity. Nien Cheng enhances her personal narrative by describing relevant Chinese historical events. As a result, the reader acquires a sense of context and is better able to understand why certain things happen to her. For example, Nien Cheng is repeatedly persecuted for her alleged support of Liu Xiaoqi. During one of her interrogations she is bold enough to declare that his policies, as elucidated by her jailers, sound perfectly sensible. Then after years in captivity, she is suddenly treated with more kindness and praised for her positive remarks about Liu Xiaoqi. Nien Cheng explains to the reader that during this time, political tidings had turned against the radical Gang of Four and that moderate factions in the Chinese Communist Party had rehabilitated Liu Xiaoqi. I recommend this book to anyone interested in modern Chinese history, in survival and triumph, or to anyone who enjoys encountering the English language at its best. My deep respect and appreciation go out to Nien Cheng.
Rating:
Summary: triumph of the spirit
Review: Whilst some readers have their viewpoints that the author had shown no sympathy towards the plight of their fellow Chinese, I think the issues that the book is trying to address here is about life struggle, human endurance, & triumph of the spirit. The message is an affirmation that if we have faith in something &/or somebody, perseverance will show us through the day. Whilst it is easy for us to judge someone's character, we have to analyse every & each circumstances through their context. Afterall, we human are not perfect. But I still believe that there is kindness in every & each one of us. There was a book written by Han Su-Yin & she briefly mentioned about the author but it's obvious of her contempt for the latter person due to her background. Sometimes, we couldn't help wondering if the attack is personal or done objectively. Whatever that is, I still can't help admiring the author for her courage in standing up against the tall order. I know I wouldn't.
Rating:
Summary: A great book
Review: A powerful account of life under incredible stress . Possibly the best book you will ever read (and I read it 10 years ago).
Rating:
Summary: This was an fascinating account of life in China in the past
Review: I had to read this book for a college history class, but I ended up loving it! I got so engrossed in it. Cheng gives such a powerful account of how life was under Mao Zedong and how so many innocent people suffered. I had no idea that all of that had gone on in China. Her novel was so interesting because she gave so many details that could only have come from a person who lived through it.
Rating:
Summary: Showed the Light to the Truth
Review: When I read this book, I was amazed at what Communism did to China. I am originally from Ukraine. I left a year after the USSR fell appart. I was too young to really know what the effects of Communism had on my family. After reading this Life And Death, I started to understand so much better why my parents hated it so much. Communism really seems to ruin a lot of peoples lives and even after the communist party falls, instead of everything getting better, it becomes even more chaotic. I commend Nien Cheng for surviving her ordeal and not giving up with her life even after she knew that her daughter died. She is an example to all man kind.
Rating:
Summary: How glad I am to live in a civilised world.
Review: This book shows that if you have faith and conviction on your side you are able to withstand allmost anything that is thrown at you. This great lady suffered the most terrible torture that could be inflicted on a mother, to be denied the right to have contact with her only daughter. She lived for more than six years in a place we in the west would call Hell. The only comfort she had was knowing that she had never committed any of the crimes that she was accused of. A shining light for all of us when it comes to the time when we have to stand up and be counted for our principles. I have never read a book that moved me so much as this. A masterwork, a book that you should have in your collection for all time.
Rating: 
Summary: deserved what she got
Review: I really sympathized with the Red Guards who threw all her ming porcelain junk out the window. the way she patronized her "poor little servants" moved me to retch. she deserved everything she got. she's worse than the worst racists in Falnnery o'connor. maybe mao wasn't all bad
Rating:
Summary: Awesome and powerfully written
Review: Aside from the City of Joy, this is the only one other book that has moved me to tears - all the more because I am an overseas Chinese living now in Malaysia, where my grandparents migrated to in the 1930s. Up until now, I have always regarded China as a remote nation totally unrelated to myself as an individual. I am now very curious about this country from which my family orginated. I want to visit China (a sort of home-coming?) and see how its people have managed to survive one misguided campaign after another, usually with the loss of millions of lives. Nien Cheng has reminded all of us of the privileges that we enjoy and take for granted, such as economic wealth, material comfort, family and friends, and most of all freedom of speech and movement. As a woman, she has inspired me with her intelligence and fortitude. In her place, I am almost certain I would not have lasted 6 weeks, much less 6 years. A must-read, I feel, especially for all Chinese people, both in China as well as abroad, (indeed for people everwhere in the world) lest we forget how blessed we are in today's modern world.
Rating:
Summary: Read it if you want to know what a really good book is.
Review: Author Nien Cheng has provided one of the most lurid and heart wrenching details of her experiences from a socialite in capitalist Shanghai to her painful days of undergoing 'thought reform' in China's terror driven prisons during the Cultural Revolution. Wish I could give a 6-star for this one!
Rating:
Summary: Heartwrenching, Gripping
Review: Nien Cheng is the kind of woman that should make all women proud to be women. Her story is so beautifully written that she has you right beside her through all the turmoil and suffering during this period in history. I could not put the book down once I started to read it and found myself rushing to get to the next page. This is perhaps the only book I feel I can read again and again. A marvelous book of human endurance and love. I have never reacted to any book with the feeling that to meet its author would be a wonderful gift in my life.
| 
