This book picks up its three stars because of the depth of research its authors did in search of new dirt on Mao, but that's a more limited positive than you might think. The book is so slanted against Mao that it's of almost no use to any reader without a deep pre-existing knowledge of Mao's life and history.

You would need that history to have a perspective on which of Chang and Halliday's accusations to take seriously, which might offer new revelations, and which should be dismissed as stretched truths or fabrications. In this entire long book, there is nary a complimentary statement about Mao to be found. I am perfectly willing to believe that Mao's rise and reign in China were a tragedy for the country and its people, but it's impossible to believe that a person could impact the world on the scale Mao did without some characteristics of leadership, intelligence and cunning.

Chang and Halliday would have you believe that an evil person, of no particular leadership ability, with no military skill, of average intelligence somehow schemed his way to being the leader of the most populous country on earth. That simply doesn't add up.

If you know Mao's story well and want to know what the average anti-Mao Chinese thought of the man, this is truly a good source based on primary research. If, however, you are looking for an objective overview of Mao's life, his rise to power, and his reign over China and its consequences, you'll have to keep looking.

Mao: The Unknown Story deserves some attention. For those weary of Mao history, perhaps one more book will not make a difference. All histories are ultimately subjective. Some more than others. Jung Chang did not undertake this book to make Mao a nice person. Instead, it gives us as all books do - some insight into historical leaders. Does the book lack a balanced perspective? Sometimes. Does this invalidate the book? Certainly not. Did she and Jon Halliday do their homework? Definitely. Could the book have been better? Sure, in some places, Jung's appraisal of Mao's character (especially in the early years) feels more opinionated than observed. After all, people change and do evolve, and making certain definitive statements about how Mao was like even as a young man - may be jumping the gun and could have been better tempered. I think this what the critics of this book are responding to.

I have yet to read a Chinese history book that was happy. So let's face the facts - 20th century China went through a massive upheaval and shock. That they've been able to bounce back and become today's superpower has little to do with Mao, who liberated the nation but subjected it to his harsh ideologies. The men who succeeded Mao's leadership have to take some credit for where it is now - not Mao alone. He took them out of one darkness into another, and set the tone for the other country's leaders to improve on the country's fortunes. This is my response to those that say that "Mao did it all in spite of being a mass murderer." Mao had a friendly smile but he was brutal, so I am more than okay with an author who wants to address that point. The book is clearly a labour of love or hate that the authors committed themselves to bringing to the public.

GET THIS BOOK IF...

a) You like reading about power and understanding why China is the way it is today. This is a good study into power and how Mao shaped (and subverted) Chinese politics. His political legacies are still felt, making this a relevant read. + 1 point for addressing the Chinese psyche.

b) You want a clear, readable text. This isn't a dense, academic text. The writing is straightforward but the facts speak for themselves most of the time. + 1 point for writing style and organisation.

c) You want to understand Mao but not worry too much about other details. The book focusses mainly on Mao and doesn't divert too much into the other Chinese politicians so be aware of that. More research may be needed on them. 0.5 points for their backstories.

d) You need to know how Korea, SE Asia and Russia figured in China's development and vice versa.
Historical scholars will find this interesting, especially if they're into Asian or Chinese history. The book is 616 pages long with an additional 184 pages devoted to footnotes, research sources and indexes. + 1 point for usefulness.

e) You have read other Mao books and need more. If you have read other Mao bios, and want more details, this provides more clarity on certain things - e.g. his unwieldy relationships with Russia. + 1 point for delineating new info.

NOW - If you're new to Mao, do some basic reading on him first before jumping into this. Casual readers may appreciate this more with some background googling on Mao first. It's not a bad place to start, but you do need to know more about Chinese history to fully appreciate where Jung Chang is coming from sometimes. Characters like Sun Yat Sen aren't discussed in much detail so have your google ready.

Perhaps too much of modern China has been seen through Mao's rule but he remains its most visible personality and prism for now. Nonetheless, this is not an all-round introduction of modern China and will assume you understand some aspects. If not, I'd also recommend another Chinese history book to help you fill in the gaps as well. However, Mao Tse Tung cannot be ignored and Mao: The Unknown Story merits a look.

Words cannot convey the magnitude of atrocities against the Chinese people that are described in detail here. And most of it is still not known in the West. The author backs up the reporting of every event with two or three sources that were present at the time. According to the authors of The Black Book of Communism, estimates are now between 60 and 65 million Chinese that died as the direct result of Mao's attempt to create the Chinese version of the "New Soviet Man." The national psychosis of those years will take generations to recover from, olympics or no.

If a picture is truly worth 1,000 words, Jung Chang could have drawn a crisper portrait and spared us the repetitive and monotonous diatribe that stretches over 600 pages. This depressing narrative is peppered with painstaking details on each solitary injury, strategic blunder and character foible of Mao over his long and lethal lifetime. As insightful and illustrative as all this might be, she could have chosen a few select examples and still made her points about what a savage, conscienceless thug he was.

The best chapters are those that depict Mao's scheming interactions with fascinating world-stage characters ranging from Stalin and Khrushchev to Kissinger and Nixon. The entertaining anecdotes about his personal habits and odd scatological humour add colour and lighten the dismal recounting of the fate of the mind-numbing millions who suffered under Mao. But, overall, the experience of reading this lengthy tome can be as relentlessly brutal as Mao himself.

I am not a student of Chinese history and knew little of the details of Mao's rule in China until reading this book. In fact, the reason I read the book at all was to learn a little something more than my general impressions derived from news reports during this period. With that said, my overall evaluation of the book is that it is a long ponderous volume that for the general reader is not worth the effort of slogging through over 600 page of dense text to learn some of the details of Mao's reign. I also have some skepticism of the large volume of supporting materials, which are used to source choice facts or quotes plucked from these items to support the authors' statements.

Despite the large effort necessary to get through it, the book serves a very basic need. I believe that even among sophisticated and educated people, little is known, especially in the United States, of the horrors of the Communist regimes of Stalin and Mao Tse Tung -- this in marked contrast to our knowledge of the Holocaust and Hitler's insanely evil mass murders. In recent years, however, some scholars (e.g., Robert Conquest) and popular writers (e.g., Martin Amis) have attempted to bring to the attention of general readers the atrocities and mass murders of Stalin and the Soviets. But as far as I know, there has been little corresponding effort with respect to Mao's atrocities, and this volume helps to fill that gap. Its greatest value thus lies in just setting forth the facts of Mao's mind-numbing atrocities. At the end of the book (p. 613), the authors write that "[w]ell over 70 million people had perished - in peacetime - as a result of his [Mao's] misrule." This one statement just about says it all. What more does one need to know about a leader who systematically caused the deaths of over 70 million innocent souls! The remainder of the book gives the ghastly details, in particular the widespread famines that resulted from requisitions of agricultural products needed by the regime to generate foreign exchange to support a massive weapons program.

The parallels between the atrocities of Stalin and Mao are striking. The pervasive use of state terror to acquire and consolidate political power, grain requisitions that left a helpless populace to starve to death, a war against peasants ("Kulaks" in USSR) and intellectuals, collectivization of families into state worker barracks, and party purges -- all carried out in the name of a Communist doctrine that was supposed to free "the people" from the yoke of capitalism. The authors point out, however, that while Stalin's mass murders were largely committed by a professional terror agency (KGB & its predecessor organizations) and in secret prisons and slave labor camps away from the public eye, Mao's atrocities were often carried out by frenzied bands of marauding Communist thugs in staged public gatherings where the victims were "denounced" and abused and tortured before crowds of cheering citizens.

But the extent to which the entire Communist movement in China was controlled and financed by Stalin came as a surprise to me, especially the fawning and subservient role played by Mao. According to the authors, virtually every major decision and policy move made by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the moment of its founding in the early 1920's until Mao's petulant attempts to show his independence in the 1950's was controlled by Moscow. I was not surprised to learn that the Soviets gave unqualified support to Mao after the Japanese were defeated in WWII while the US vacillated and hemmed and hawed in its support of Chiang.

I came away from the book with the feeling that I got only part of the story. For example, it is well known in America (neither of the authors is American, by the way) that the US "supported" Chiang Kai-Chek and his Nationalists in the fitful civil war that ravaged the country from the 1930's until Mao and the Communists drove Chiang to the island of Formosa in 1949. My impression from other readings is that the US support role in the civil war, especially from 1945 to 1949, was substantial and that President Truman's uncertain and bungling efforts to broker a compromise between Chiang and Mao led to the Communists' victory. Yet there is little in this volume describing US policy in China in the 1940's and its effect on the outcome of the civil war. In addition, there is no mention of the internal struggles within the US Government -- for example, the role of Communist sympathizers like FDR's Vice President Henry Wallace and Asian specialist Professor Owen Lattimore in securing Mao's triumph over Chiang.

All in all, the flaws in the book balance its benefits. Most of the text consists of anecdotal stories of Mao's cruelty, his never-ending scheming, and his intimate involvement in state atrocities -- to establish that Mao was a very bad man on a personal level. This theme is constantly embellished by reference to his personal traits and habits - for example, his four "marriages" and many children, for whom he had not the least regard, his elaborate security apparatus involving thousands of personnel, his luxurious life style in mansions constructed to his personal taste in every city in the nation where he might visit, his enjoyment of the benefits of things (e.g., movies and books) denied to his own citizens, and his procurement of young girls for sex much like medieval European kings. Clearly, the authors establish that Mao was a loathsome individual on almost every level of human existence. As they point out, however, his legacy and reputation still dominate the Chinese government, and as we saw in the Beijing 2008 Olympics, his portrait still hangs proudly in Tiananmen Square.

I must admit, that this is my first biography of Mao, actually my first book on Chinese history; while I have been to China at least 25 times.

Not being a professor of history, I cannot judge the truth of the book, but it certainly seems EXTREMELY well researched. There is no doubt, that the authors despise Mao, they make no apologies about it.

After a bit of a slow start (reading the "first few dozen pages" is not enough!), the book does get very interesting and very scary.
I read biographies of Stalin and of course (being a German) of Hitler. If only 20% of this book is true, both Hitler and Stalin were "harmless" compared to Mao.
One difference between Mao and Hitler / Stalin seems Mao's total lack of purpose, other than his personal power.

The authors do not mention even one good thing about Mao. It is inconceivable to me, that Mao was ONLY bad.....even Hitler built the famous German autobahns. This is the main point against this book.

After having read biographies of Hitler, Stalin and Mao, it is scary, how easy ruthless people can deceive their fellow country men.
( While I am certainly NOT putting Mr. George W. Bush ANYWHREE close to these villains, it is telling, how easily he could get things like Guantanamo Bay and the Patriot's Act passed.......)

I must say that I was eager to begin reading this widely appreciated biography. Unfortunately, I was turned off by Mao's self indulgent character. Perhaps one day I will pick it up again, but I didn't want to waste a day of my summer vacation by reading about someone I wouldn't care to meet.

You want to know the truth about Mao? This is your book! Mao was a sociopath and a monster.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao--of the three towering totalitarian dictators of the 20th century, Mao Tse Tung has always been considered the most benign. Darling of western leftists, Warholian pop icon, the "people's" chairman, Mao has long been a symbol for many who had absolutely no idea of the reality he represented.

In *Mao: the Unknown Story,* authors Chang and Halliday seek to correct the misperception. They portray Mao as a cold, cruel, asocial nihilist who believed in nothing--nothing, that is, except for Mao. Communism was merely a vehicle to achieving the power and privilege that Mao sought in what he considered a strictly material existence--the point of which was to personally appropriate as much material as possible. "When a man is dead," Mao reasoned, "what does he care about his reputation?"

So he'd hardly care about the conclusions Chang and Halliday advance in this scathing biography. The authors seem determined to re-establish the balance thrown off by decades of ignorance, silence, and oppression--all of which have contributed to a pseudo-heroic view of Mao. Chang and Halliday's evident "agenda" unfortunately give their book a less than objective feel--as if they felt it necessary to pile upon Mao as much dirt as possible. Mao, in these authors view, does absolutely nothing right, or for any good reason, and is virtually void of any decent motivation whatsoever. Their account is a bit like watching a prosecuting attorney giving an entirely one-sided and negative interpretation to the evidence with the sole intention of convicting the accused. There's hardly any doubt that Mao is guilty--but one can't help but feel that he's got at least a few arguments to make in his defense.

Mao's improbable rise to power makes for fascinating reading. He basically became a communist because as a young schoolteacher the Party would pay him a stipend to recruit members. Mao seems to have gone about this task a lot like an un-enterprising girl scout might sell cookies--by signing up members of his family to be communists but almost no one else! From there Mao rose through the ranks primarily by doing the opposite of whatever he was ordered or agreed previously to do. His favorite modus operandi seemed to be one of a number of variations of "I didn't get that memo." Time and time again Mao claimed that messages were lost, orders were misunderstood, phone calls disconnected. He simply "disappeared" whenever it was convenient, and then popped up again after whatever self-serving antic had become a fait accompli.

The famous Long March? -it was all a tragic sham, according to the authors, in which Mao led his followers on a wild goose chase like a crafty Moses who knew very well where he was supposed to be going but purposely took the longest most disastrous route possible to eliminate his competition and consolidate his own power. He was going to make sure that when he entered the Promised Land it would be as king. For Mao, 90% of the population was unnecessary, expendable, a point he made time and again when discussing the perfectly--in his view--option of all-out nuclear war.

From Mao's birth to his wretched death of Lou Gehrig's disease, it's all here--the purges and great leaps, the civil wars and cultural wars, the super-secret nuclear weapons programs and politically-induced famines, the Nixon/Kissinger visits on-stage and behind-the-scenes--and all of it recounted in a briskly paced, mesmerizing, almost novelistic narrative.

While it often seems one-sided and as if the authors, especially Ms. Chang, have a personal ax to grind with the chairman, *Mao* must nonetheless be considered essential reading at this point in understanding the rise and regime of Mao Tse Tung. Other more balanced books will probably pop up in its wake, but for now this one establishes an important and much-needed corrective to the popular view of a dictator all too often regarded as one of the champions of humanity's underdogs.

This is my third biography off Mao this summer, following Lucian Pye's Mao: The Man in the Leader, and Li Zhisui's portrait of Mao based on his time as the Great Helmsman's personal physician. And I'vee recently read Walter Laquer's Staklain: The Glasnost Revelations, and Dmitri Volkogonov's biography of Lenin using formerly secret Soviet archival materials. This book is in their tradition of making available invaluable new findings that give new insights into their subject.

This book, based on interviews and research into state archives in China, Russia, and elsewhere, is very similar to the latter two. Previously unavailable material is presented which places a new light on the subject. Isn't this the kind of thing we look for in history? The style may not be for everyone, but no one reads history for style, so such criticisms entirely miss the mark, and border on ad hominem arguments.

The funny thing is, some people feel compelled to advocate for Mao. Who can imagine why? Does Stalin still have his apologists, as he did in America in the 30s and later? Does Kim Il Sung still have votaries? Claiming that Mao unified China (and why is this good for the rest of the world?) as though this somehow justified the world's greatest starvation (the laughable Great Leap Forward) is fallacious. So what romantic dreams continues to impel Mao's defenders?

This book gives great insight into Mao's background, his beginnings, his early manipulations of others, and his consistent (and quite imaginative!) scheming to get control of the party. His ingenuity at destroying and controlling others is remarkable! His provocations of Chiang kai-shek, trying to provoke civil war to compel Soviet assistance are quite creative as well. Most interesting to me has been the deconstruction of the culture of Yenan, where Mao et al invented Chinese totalitarianism. Tragically, he turned against everyone who was close to him, and inevitably, this led to his disgusting episodes of self-pity later in life.

Those who fault this book should go the historian's route, and look at the same evidence and draw their own conclusions from it. Mao's been dead for 30+ years. Get over it, and get informed. It would be good to see more biographies of Mao. After all, there is a cottage industry on Hitler biographies, and Mao Tse-tung is a subject to (at a minimum) rival him in complexity and influence.

When it comes to topics such as this there will be biased views, but these authors went out of their way to let you know how they felt about Mao Tse Tung. Despite their feelings towards Mao the book was very informative and a good read. The only real problem that I had with the book was not what was written, which I find to be pretty accurate, but what was left out. Even though Mao was a psychotic, manipulative, power hungry, mass murdering, lunatic the authors neglected to inform that if it weren't for Mao, China would still be raped by every other country and not the country it is today. I'm not saying what he did was justified, only that the authors need to show all angles and not just one side. BUt all in all, I would def. recommend it.

1st of all i think that the book was great. 2nd of all id like to point out that previous comments about men wanting to sleep with Mao is disgusting. In some countries you could be seriously punished for acting gay. 3rdly i think most of the reviews saying the book was bad are extremely baised. The people writing them "Worship Mao" and "Only read one page to tell book was bad." You definetly shouldnt allow these people to influcence your opinion about the book they are total Newbz. Mao killed thousands of people. If some of you remember in the early 50's the "Great Leap Forward." Mao killed millions in a forced famine. What a great guy to want to sleep with.

I am blown away by the amount of information about Mao and how much damage he did to China. This book is very long and people with short attention spans should avoid it. Despite being listed as 864 pages, the book is only about 621 pages. The rest of the pages are the bibliography, sources, and interview credits (except for mainland China which they didn't name for obvious reasons).

The book is of course, anti-Mao. Given that leftists and liberals try to portray Mao as a good guy, it is a welcome breath of fresh air.

Mao's whole life is chronicled here, from birth to death. His rise to a communist leader, the fight against the Nationalists, his family, his victories and defeats, dealings with the Soviets, his attempts to make China a nuclear world power, his disastrous policies that lead to 35 million Chinese starving to death. The book shows Mao was a psychopathic dictator, and even people within his own communist party were opposed to him, especially during the Cultural Revolution and the Great Famines that Mao caused. I have a new measure of sympathy for the Chinese people who suffered so much under Mao.

This is a horrible book. I am surprised that the author has a doctorate degree yet her logic is totally problematic.

As some reviewers have pointed out, the logic of the book is absurd: I want to prove Mao is evil --> I will collect facts to prove it, whether or not they are supportive. A lot of times the author is forcing some facts to prove her negative opinion about Mao although these facts don't prove anything. Many of her facts are unfounded as well --- you don't know exactly what the source is and can't verify them (I do want to credit the author for those new and founded facts).

The author was a "red guard" herself and had the privilege of studying abroad as one of the first group of students sponsored by the Chinese government when the cultural revolution ended. I am puzzled what had turned her into the other extreme --- she hates Mao so much that she even loses the ability of independent thinking.

This is a horrible book. I am surprised that the author has a doctorate degree yet her logic is totally problematic.

As some reviewers have pointed out, the logic of the book is absurd: I want to prove Mao is evil --> I will collect facts to prove it, whether or not they are supportive. A lot of times the author is forcing some facts to prove her negative opinion about Mao although these facts don't prove anything. Her facts are unfounded as well --- you don't know exactly what the source is and can't verify them.

The author was a "red guard" herself and the trauma has turned her into the other extreme. She hates Mao so much that she even loses the ability of independent thinking.

I dont like Mao, even hate him.

But, reading this book makes me disappointed - I found that the way the book is made follows very Mao' style as described by the authors themselves.

Some history facts are completely black-white overturned, for example,
1. the india-china war: please refer to Mr. Neville Maxwell's India's
China War.

2. the writer stated: Mao summoned his former wife, which deteriorated
her metal illness.
The fact is that, someone else revealed Mao's whereabouts to her
because of sympathy. And Mao punished the man just because of this. It is clear that there is no reason for Mao to make such an appointment, can not be more inscrutable.

3. the nuclear weapons:
why make the promise that China will not use it first? isnt it completely defensive?
Then the authors' fiction on Mao's nuclear ambition is not justfiable.

The authors' bias, and efforts of pulling everything evil and making everything evil about Mao can be sensed sadly here. (Not sad for Mao, but for such a kind of writing.)


What to say? Read more - this is my sincere advice.

I dont like Mao, even hate him.

But, reading this book makes me disappointed - I found that the way the book is made follows very Mao' style as described by the authors themselves.

Some history facts are completely black-white overturned, for example,
1. the india-china war: please refer to Mr. Neville Maxwell's India's
China War.

2. the writer stated: Mao summoned his former wife, which deteriorated
her metal illness.
The fact is that, someone else revealed Mao's whereabouts to her
because of sympathy. And Mao punished the man just because of this. It is clear that there is no reason for Mao to make such an appointment, can not be more inscrutable.

The authors' bias, and efforts of pulling everything evil and making everything evil about Mao can be sensed sadly here. (Not sad for Mao, but for such a kind of writing.)


What to say? Read more - this is my sincere advice.

I dont like Mao, even hate him.

But, reading this book makes me disappointed - I found that the way the book is made follows very Mao' style as described by the authors themselves.

Some history facts are completely black-white overturned, for example, the india-china war(please refer to Mr. Neville Maxwell's India's China War).

What to say? Read more - this is my sincere advice.

If half of the stuff in this book is true, then this is a story of an absolute thug! The book at certain points is revolting and it becomes difficult to read as atrocities are narrated. The CCP should take a page out of their masters, the old Soviet Union's CP after Stalin, and "purge" themselves (yet one more time) of all of Mao's legacy.
The Chinese must be very resilient indeed to have come this far in this post-Mao era.

Mao Tse-tung was once the model and the object of ideological veneration for revolutionists around the world. Whether it was South American guerillas, who squatted on their heels for hours listening to readings from his Little Red Book, or wannabe radicals from Berkeley to the Sorbonne who hung posters of his smiling image on their dorm room walls, for them Mao represented the future of world revolution. The man had them all fooled.

In an effort to discredit the book and its authors, critics of MAO: The UNKNOWN STORY like to point out Jung Chang's personal animosity for her subject. People who've read Chang's prior work, WILD SWANS, are familiar with the woman's family history, that both of her parents were victims of Mao's Cultural Revolution, and that her father suffered permanent physical and mental damage from being routinely tortured while he was imprisoned. However, should facts that are uncovered in an investigation be discredited because of the personal prejudices of the investigator, especially when, in addition to these facts, there is outside testimony which validate the biases of the investigator? If such was the case, then much of the work published over the last half-century on fascism and National Socialism, as well as the biographies of the founders and leading figures of these movements would be discredited.

Despite her obvious, but understandable, difficulty to proceed with much academic detachment or objectivity, Jung Chang and her husband, Jon Halliday, both put eleven years of research into the life of China's Paramount Leader, including the contents of the recently opened Soviet archives pertaining to the Chinese Communist Party and the results of their interviews with hundreds of people who knew Mao personally. They spare no abhorrent details to Mao's life.

A spoiled child who grew to be a physically lethargic, emotionally indifferent man, Mao was a master schemer who allowed nothing to keep him from his desires, politically or personally.

[...]

Mao Tse-tung was once the model and the object of ideological veneration for revolutionists around the world. Whether it was South American guerillas, squatting on their heels for hours listening to readings from his Little Red Book, or wannabe radicals from Berkeley to the Sorbonne who hung posters of his smiling image on their dorm room walls, for them Mao represented the future of world revolution. The man had them all fooled.

In order to discredit the importance of this work, critics of MAO: The UNKNOWN STORY often point to the personal animosity of the book's primary author towards her subject. Both of Jung Chang's parents were victims of Mao's Cultural Revolution, her father suffered permanent physical and mental illnesses from his imprisonment and torture. However, should facts that are uncovered in an investigation be discredited because of the personal prejudices of the investigator, especially when, in addition to the hard facts, there is outside testimony to validate the biases of the investigator? If such was the case, then much of the work published over the last half-century on fascism and National Socialism, as well as the biographies of the founders and leading figures of these movements would be discredited.

Despite her obvious, but understandable, difficulty to proceed with much academic detachment or objectivity, Jung Chang and her husband, Jon Halliday, both put eleven years of research into the life of China's Paramount Leader, including the contents of the recently opened Soviet archives pertaining to the Chinese Communist Party and the results of their interviews with hundreds of people who knew Mao personally. They spare no abhorrent details to Mao's life.

A spoiled child who grew to be a physically lethargic, emotionally indifferent man, Mao was a master schemer who allowed nothing to keep him from his desires, politically or personally.

Chang and Halliday's MAO: The UNKNOWN STORY is the biography of history's most successful ideological fraud, an expert opportunist and manipulator who caused the deaths of at least 70 million human beings merely to facilitate his ambitions to power and a place in history.

Like the style of this book or not, people have to take its content seriously. I went through many books on China in Barnes & Noble, not one (except this one) ever delves into anything remotely related to the unimaginable horrors Mao unleashed in China. In these other books, it's always a general summary of the anti-this or anti-that campaigns as if all Mao did was playing politics. Wake up! Mao's brand of politics is nothing like what is practised here in America. Most of the academics in America appear incapable of understanding the sheer magnitude of evil a human being like Mao can commit and often admire his "political skills". Mao's brand of politics was played with the lives of millions upon millions of fellow Chinese. It' a politics (if it should even be considered politics) of class elimination through terror and lies! He is a master of divide and conquer, but when he conquered, anyone (millions upon millions) in his way lost their lives. He conquered not just in war times (against fellow Chinese), but more so in peace times! He conquered not just his enemies, but anyone with a few bucks or read a few books or have some relatives outside China or former comrades! They died like stray dogs or barely survided like slaves. Mao set China back by at least half a century and even today his brand of politis has poisoned the minds of the whole country! For Americans in particular, Mao costed the lives of probably about 50,000 Americans in Korea and Vietnam, as a payback for what America did for China in WWII, which is essentially a war defending China against Japan. America has to regret not supporting Chiang Kai-shek's fight against the communists!
We human beings are sandwitched between God and Satan, but among the tens of billions of souls ever inhabited this earth, very few are closer to Satan than Mao. One can even build a strong case that Mao is closer to Satan than even Hitler and Stalin!
Beyond belief? Yes, but it's true.

The problem of this book can be succinctly captured by this quote: "In their zeal to protect something precious, people sometimes decide to dig the moat too far out, thinking that it is safer to defend too much than risk defending too little. The result is that they end up trying to defend the indefensible, clinging to an extreme position that is actually vulnerable only because of its exaggeration." - D. Dennett

I believe that all politicians are corrupted to a certain extent. Mao Tze Tung is no doubt a totalitalian statesman. His climb to power indeed had wrecked havoc probably comparable to the worst cases in history. However, this particular caricature of Mao Tze Tung is way too overdone and extreme. This posture I believe is very much attributed to a similar degree of Nationalistic zealousness from the authors. Without much romanticizing, Mao is already well known to have a dark history. But this does not appropriate an Orwellian form of cleansing of everything else of the subject matter, especially without making a good enough effort in putting forth a well crafted and structured exegesis.

Many arguments are shallow and are simplistic syllogistic assertions that are quite obviously contorted out of context. The passages are mostly done in chronological order. But it is difficult to see how the authors are capable in writing the book in another format with the obvious lack of a much needed cohesiveness of the anecdotal debris. When it comes to descriptions and arguments of Chiang, mistakes, bad decisions and indecisiveness are pretty much all excused. Whenever the passage is about Mao, even an involuntary sneezing can be taken as a malicious attempt to spread deadly germs. This I do not expect from any good journalist or author.

I am not an expert of the history of Mao. However, this thick brick (of paper) does not only (attempt to) make Mao to be a one-of-a-kind devil that had once loomed Earth, it also makes everyone who were around him to look stupid and dumb. How could those obvious devilish stupid acts, if they were indeed the truth and the whole truth as the author has interpreted, evaded all the smart eyes back then? These decades of history cannot be done single handedly. The book pretty much makes Mao to look as if he won all he had by sheer luck, or everyone who could be collectively-able to stop him at various stages must be the most foolish lemmings. The Mao depicted in the book is almost like a cartoon-evil character who won what he won because he was simply evil and because the script made it to be. This exaggeration makes many passages in the book unconvincing and laughable.

The problem of this book can be succinctly captured by this quote: "in their zeal to protect something precious, people sometimes decide to dig the moat too far out, thinking that it is safer to defend too much than risk defending too little. the result is that they end up trying to defend the indefensible, clinging to an extreme position that is actually vulnerable only because of its exaggeration." - d. dennett

I believe that all politicians are corrupted to a certain extent. However this particular caricature of mao tze tung is way too much. Many arguments are shallow and are simplistic syllogistic assertions that are quite obviously contorted out of context. When it comes to description and arguments of Chang, everything is great and all mistakes and bad decisions or indecisiveness are excused. Whenever it is about Mao, even a sneezing can be taken as an attempt to spread germs.

I am not an expert of the history of Mao. However, this exegesis does not only (attempt to) make Mao to be a one-of-a-kind devil that had once loomed Earth, it also makes everyone who were around him to look stupid and dumb. How could those obvious devilish stupid acts, if they were indeed the truth and the whole truth as the author has interpreted, evaded all the smart eyes back then? This pretty much makes Mao to look as if he won all he had by sheer luck. The Mao depicted in the book is almost like a cartoon-evil who won what he won because he was simply evil and because the script made it to be. This exaggeration makes many passages in the book unconvincing and laughable.

This is a riveting biography of one of history's worst mass murderers told in a chillingly understated style. This man killed tens of millions of innocents as he lived in luxury. I could not put it down.

I just finished reading Mao: "The Unknown Story" and think that the author definitley got her point across at portraying Mao for more or less who he was. The problem that I had with this book is the same problem more eloquently expressed in other reviews is its high level of subjectivity to the point of reading like a long drawn out tabloid creating some skepicism surounding the facts. Unlike another reviewer who stated that this book was tough to get through because it was "overly simplistic" I felt that it was easy to get through for that very reason. It needs to be pointed out that whoever was responsible for editing made some very obvious grammatical errors which should be corrected if this book ever gets reprinted.

Mao: "The Unknown Story" would make a good supplement for other more objective biographies written about this enigma called Mao but should not be taken literally as an all conclusive definitive.

One shouldn't doubt that Jung Chang has reason to despise Mao, having lived through the effects of his reign. Mao himself certainly left plenty of evidence of his tyranny. The problem is that the vendetta is so obvious that it reaches self-parody after a couple hundred pages. The authors purport to know Mao's actual thoughts at specific times, suggest that he deserves the blame (if that's the proper word) for Stalin's death, and take an obvious relish in describing Mao's incompetence regarding such as language acquisition and management. Don't base all of your knowledge of the subject on this single source.

I approached the book wanting to understand how Mao was able to take control of China and the truth about his reign.
What I got was definitely not objective. This book would be a good companion piece to research about Mao, but I feel like it's written with an ax to grind.
It's written in the textbook manner, although it makes no bones about presenting other points of view or interpretations. Very little in the way of useful maps (they mention Outer Mongolia a hundred times, but don't bother to tell you it's present day Mongolia or have it on a map) and pictures placed in inserts rather than chronologically.
I came away from this book with an impressively researched overview of Mao's life and his place in the Cold War but no greater understanding of how he was able to manipulate, intimated, murder his way to the top, and create an enduring cult of personality. Mao seemed almost like a ghost in his own biography, especially after 1949. I wanted to know more of the how & why as well as the details. I can't really address the other serious scholarly issue of the book as other reviewers have.

...to think that based on the reviews and the numbers pro and con, that most folks think Mao is great. This of course does not bode well for our future as a nation, if someone like Mao can so capture our hearts. Not the first time our starry eyed idealists missed the mark, nor is it the last. Great book, if you think Mao was not really good for the world.

This is not serious history! This is not serious scholarship! This screed is intellectually lacking and bankrupt. This is a waste of effort and money. Even as one acknowledges that Mao was a monster, there is absolutely no historical objectivity in this book. It is a tough book to get through since it is such a hatchet job and overly simplistic. The formula it follows is this: Mao = Bad, Anything or anyone opposed to Mao = Good.
All historical facts and accounts are tainted and suspect because of the whole tone of the book- nothing is credible. This is simply a screaming diatribe or catharsis against Mao. Anyone who expressed a position that differed from the authors' views - from journalists, to historians, to philosophers, economists and academics, heads of state etc. (past, present and I would assume future) is tagged as "naive", "a lackey" or a "chowder head liberal"!
I do not recommend this book for anything. It is useless as history, or as a biography.

It's amazing to me how little people understand human nature. Evil people never consider themselves to be truly evil (there are no Darth Vaders). They find or invent justifications for their actions, no matter how twisted they may be. The apologists say that he united China - wow, that's some achievement. And all it cost in terms of human suffering were countless deaths and indescribable torment. It's a typically lame academic argument - I'm sure if Don Mele (a previous reviewer) had his family taken away and he was horribly tortured and killed he wouldn't go up to heaven and tell St. Peter "you know, what happened to me was horrible but at least the president unified the country so some good came out of it". As long as it happens to someone else, it's OK I guess. The apologists also claim that Mao was a deep thinker who loved the arts - yes, he was and could afford to be as long as he prevented anyone else from enjoying the pleasures he never denied himself (a la Castro and every other sympathetic dictator). Here's a good one - Mao raised literacy. Yes, it's nice to do that but then you undertake destroying every piece of available literature in the country except for the Little Red Book. What's the use of knowing how to read if there's nothing to read? That's like having an extra arm coming out of your forehead - yes you could pick up things with it but in the end it's useless. I don't mind that the book was biased - I welcomed it. The authors backed up their assertions with impeccable research (the only way you could have quoted more primary sources was to have performed a Vulcan mind-meld on Mao while he was alive) and presented it in a vivid style that was a welcome to read. I recommend this book wholeheartedly but I throw in a word of caution - be prepared to read about a human being who did nothing while he was on this planet except cause grief and misery. I can see some people not being able to get through the amount of stupidity and misery that one man is able to accomplish but I recommend that those people forge on and read a fascinating book.

It's amazing to me how little people understand human nature. Evil people never consider themselves to be truly evil (there are no Darth Vaders). They find or invent justifications for their actions, no matter how twisted they may be. The apologists say that he united China - wow, that's some achievement. And all it cost in terms of human suffering were countless deaths and indescribable torment. It's a typically lame academic argument - I'm sure if Don Mele (a previous reviewer) had his family taken away and he was horribly tortured and killed he wouldn't go up to heaven and tell St. Peter "you know, what happened to me was horrible but at least the president unified the country so some good came out of it". As long as it happens to someone else, it's OK I guess. The apologists also claim that Mao was a deep thinker who loved the arts - yes, he was and could afford to be as long as he prevented anyone else from enjoying the pleasures he never denied himself (a la Castro and every other sympathetic dictator). Here's a good one - Mao raised literacy. Yes, it's nice to do that but then you undertake destroying every piece of available literature in the country except for the Little Red Book. What's the use of knowing how to read if there's nothing to read? That's like having an extra arm coming out of your forehead - yes you could pick up things with it but in the end it's useless. I don't mind that the book was biased - I welcomed it. The authors backed up their assertions with impeccable research (the only way you could have quoted more primary sources was to have performed a Vulcan mind-meld on Mao while he was alive) and presented it in a vivid style that was a welcome to read. I recommend this book wholeheartedly but I throw in a word of caution - be prepared to read about a human being who did nothing while he was on this planet except cause grief and misery. I can see some people not being able to get through the amount of stupidity and misery that one man is able to accomplish but I recommend that those people forge on and read a fascinating book.

Absolutely required reading for the history buff or anyone having any need to know the genesis of present day China. Gives wide comprehensive view of history of Asia throughout the 20th Century. Very readable and engaging read.

Good book and well written. The author injects a little more opinion on why Mao did various projects, took various actions and the like throughout his life, than what I would like. All in all a very in depth and well researched book.

A number of reviews, such as the one titled "Totalitarian mode of argument," have argued more eloquently than I could that this book's patronizing writing and judgmental presentation makes it read like totalitarian propaganda. I wanted to point out another bit of irony that no one else seems to have brought up.

In her previous book, Wild Swans, which has writing I admire but content that could benefit from more honesty, author Jung Chang notes in front that "in order to describe their functions accurately" she has changed the translation of "xuan-chuan-bu" ("the Department of Propaganda") to "the Department of Public Affairs." The author's father, a heroic character in the memoir, had been a co-director in such a department.

Guess how she translates the same "xuan-chuan-bu" in Mao: The Unknown Story? Well, you guessed it. It is changed back to "the Department of Propaganda." Mao once headed such a department. This time Chang does not provide a note on how much she cares about the translation accuracy.

So why the need to deploy hypocrisy?

Because: though Jung Chang was a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution, and her parents were active and loyal members of the Communist Party, they did nothing bad. They were all good. Objects that were once associated with them must be translated in commendatory terms accordingly. "Love the house, love the crows stopping on its roof."

And: Mao was evil from birth to death. He was all bad. Thus the same objects, when associated with him, must be translated in derogatory terms.

In China we call this "Red Guard language." Jung Chang was a Red Guard at the critical age of learning - and she apparently picked up the language well, even decades of living in the West have not made her drop it.

Well I read this book after I went to China for a graduation present which was at least 1 or 2 years ago, I'm 21 now. And I would like to form my own opinon. I'm very confused. Was Mao really that horrible? Did he really kill more people then Stalin and Hitler? Well I could kind of believe that part, due to the fact that there are more people in China then in Europe and Russia. This truth is hard to handle, espcially considering the fact that I didn't learn about Communist China in high school. Oh yah I learned about the Holocost and Stalinist Russia, but never about Maoist China!

Well the book starts out with Mao being forced to marry "was it his cousin"? Well she was older then he was and when she died, well he didn't really care.

But if Mao was really that inhuman then the writter of the book did a good job at making it seem that way. And it seems to me that he makes Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia look like boy scouts compared to what went on behind closed doors in China.

And it said that Mao was responisble for the deaths of over 70- to maybe 80 million people? Hard to believe isn't it? Maybe, but like I said, there are more people in China then almost anywhere else in the world.

And when I went to China, I was told by my mother to keep my mouth shut about the government and about Mao. WTF?! Ok so am I going to keep my mouth shut about Hitler if I go to Germany? Or Russia about Stalin? But then again I was a guest in their country. So if you ever go to a country like China, then keep your mouth shut, and you'll have a great time!

But if Mao really did commit those crimes. I know darn well that karma will come back to him one of these days, even if it take a few centuries.

I usually don't take the time to write reviews. However, with so many negative reviews I felt I needed to. First, let me state I have been living and teaching English in China for over a year now. To talk with high school students and see the brainwashing that goes on is scary. As evidence I will point to Taiwan. Forget the argument of whether Taiwan is a part of China or not. Out of hundreds of students, I have not yet met one who looks at the issue from the Taiwanese person's view. To those in China there is none. They can not understand why those living in Taiwan would not want to be re-united other than the Taiwan government being against it. Second, yes. I have been to Taiwan and spoken to people over there. It's absolutely amazing how wrong the mainland Chinese students have it. But then all they hear is what the communists government tells them. What does this have to do about Ms. Chang's book? Plenty.

Has anyone who criticizes the facts in this book even bothered to read the notes section in the back?! I was constantly stopping and going back to the notes to see if she had documented her claims. Yes, Ms. Chang has made some assumptions on facts that were not always clear. However, all historians (and scientists) do this. Hers just goes against what has always been taken for the so called "truth". And that is where my Taiwan point comes in. Most of the truths we know about Mao, came from Mao himself. And if not from Mao, a government in no hurry to give up the power is has enjoyed for too long. Yes, it can be hard to accept a complete 180 degree history of a person and a country. However, I believe Ms. Chang more than presents enough evidence. The list of people interviewed alone gives us a side of Mao no researcher I believe has done up to this point. But what is the most damning of all the evidence and re-writes most of what we think is the truth of communists China's history, is the opening up of the long sealed and unresearched Soviet files. I have yet to read all the negative reviews. But I have yet to read one that mentions this body of work that is the main basis for Ms. Chang's revisionism of communists China's history.

Many of the reviews state how Ms. Chang says Mao accomplished so much by just luck and uses this argument to discredit her book. My answer to that is; have you read the whole book? Yes, there was some luck involved. All leaders of a nation need it to get where they are. However, Re-read the book again. Like a good poker player, Mao made his own luck many times. Like in poker where the losers say the game is all luck and no skill, how come you see the same players winning all the time? The reason is Mao knew how to use his skill to increase his odds of his plans working. He was a master manipulator who was able to put aside conscience to get what he wanted. It also can be summarized that Mao may have had attachment disorder. This would help explain how he could have had so little regard for family or human life.

My final remark to those who do not like Ms. Chang's re-writing of history is you may not know it or like it, but so much of what we all think of Mao and communist China's version of history comes from those two stated parties. Look at how Ms. Change uses solid evidence to debunk much of what was written about Mao by Americans visiting China. Without Nixon being hoodwinked, would China be on the U.N. Security Council today? (Though it can be easily argued if not Mao, surely by Den Xiaoping when he opened China to the outside world) The Chinese have always been masters at manipulating truth, events and even people to get what they want. And please do not start calling me racist. There is a book given out by the government to anyone working with foreigners. Especially Americans. This book tells those working with foreigners how to act and treat the foreigners and make them feel comfortable by telling then what they want to hear. There is a billboard on the highway to Beijing from the airport. When important foreign businessmen come to Beijing, whatever company the foreigner businessmen work for, the billboard advertises to make it seem their company has a presence for all those traveling into Beijing from the airport to see. The trick is it changes for what ever company the government wants to impress.

Unlike those students who absolutely believe the people of Taiwan want to be re-united, don't accept the truth you have been told by a government that has no reason to change its version of history anytime soon. You should all be thankful there is a writer like Ms. Chang who spent 10 years of her life to expose what need to be exposed.

One final note. PLEASE DO NOT start lecturing about the U.S. and how our history needs to be re-written. Those arguments have NOTHING to do with this book and are left for other researchers to write books about.

I always knew Mao was an SOB but the person described in this book just stumbled into history and didn't have any real abilities. He was evil and the people around him weak. There was no objective analysis and every issue was presented one sided - Mao liked nobody - not even his family. I find it hard to believe he rose to the position he did based on my only reading of this book. I did not enjoy this book - not entertaining - not analytical - just a laundry list of evil acts with interpretations that had no backing.

This is a VERY detailed account of Mao's life and I give credit to the author for the research that went into this book. Anyone would be hard pressed to match that in a book in comparison. The 'outing' of Mao's atrocities are ghastly revealing and the power of mind control over his people is the worst revelation. The first 100 pages of this book are hard to get thru. I felt it lumbered a bit but after Mao is in charge, the flow is smoother and the description of Mao's relationships with Stalin and other world leaders is priceless.

Very well researched book. Gives you an overlook on the real Mao and how the rest of the world misinterpreted him. Shows how America was superficial in assessing how the real Mao would be and how it applied pressure on Chiang Kai Shek to enforce cease fire on Mao's critical turning point of the civil war thus making it possible for Mao to conquer China. Mao killed his colleagues and his enemies alike for the sole purpose of gaining and retaining power. All means were legitimate in his eyes to achieve that goal. It looks like we never learn from these mistakes. This attitude makes us helping the Taliban to be a prominent force and Al Qaeda flourish in Iraq, a place they have never been before the invasion. Easy reading with simple language with tons of new info reflecting our lack of knowledge about someone so important.

The newest tome of bathroom entertainment. "Entertainment" is what this is. you know when movies are "based on true events"? this book is like that. I don't blame the authors for trying to make a couple of dollars by sensationalize and distort history to their liking. no one can really say their version of history is 100% accurate, but this is almost cartoonish in nature. I just hope some poor person don't actually believes any of this non-sense.

So read this book for fun, but please don't take it seriously, and god forbid please do not bring anything up from this in a discussion with your friends or family who are knowledgeable in Chinese history. You will be laughed right out of the room.

Amidst all the controversy over this book, I can't fault the authors for their claim of Mao's responsibility for 70 million domestic peacetime deaths. That figure is indeed confirmed by the Black Book of Communism, which was written by avowed leftists.

It seems such a short time since it was oh so trendy to be seen carrying around campus a copy of the Chairman's Little Red Book.

If nothing else, this book is deeply fascinating. The questions of historical precision are raised in even a rudimentary Google search for reviews, yet this is still a book very much worth your time to read. The authors make it eminently obvious they hold no love for Mao, but partisanship or bias are not synonyms for dishonesty - they simply require the reader to attach qualifications to the conclusions. We would not discard out of hand a biography of Hitler written by an Auschwitz Jew.

Concerns for the precision of her statistics and conclusions are justified, but only to a point. Discrepancies, such as whether or not the Great Leap Forward killed 30 million or 38 million, do potentially indicate scholarly sloppiness, but myopic focus on C&H's precision only validates Stalin's notation that once you kill enough people, they're only numbers. I'm willing to accept they exaggerated their numbers, but frankly, I don't care. I'm more concerned about a lot of people getting killed than about exactly how many it was.

Ultimately, this book asks you to weigh the benefits of Mao's life by exposing his awesome sins. Exaggerated though some numbers might be, and partisan though the arguments are, to dismiss this portrait of Mao on those grounds only encourages history to repeat itself. I don't disagree with the other reviews that this books neglects the "benefits" of Mao's reign, but starting down that road is extremely dangerous. By turning analysis of Mao's reign into a cost-benefit analysis between the lives he killed and the lives he raised from poverty or the advances in issues like women's rights, we only make it easier to repeat these mistakes. I am far more comfortable using Mao's biography as a morality tale that damns him unconditionally than I am with utilitarian calculations, however correct or honest those calculations might be. I appreciate the loss in nuance, historical accuracy, and objectivity, but are we really comfortable with the idea that presiding over the deaths of tens of millions of people is ultimately justified if future generations are lifted from poverty?

This is a book with caveats, no doubt, but also a book that makes one think that if you were given one chance to change the course of history, there might be few better choices than wishing Mao was never born.

Before I started reading this book I had great expectations. I knew nothing about Mao at the time and this book seemed like a good place to start. This was a mistake. To make it short, the author's aim is not to tell the story of Mao, but to break his reputation. According to the author, Mao did not believe in communism, he just happened to join the communist party (although when he did join there were very few members and nothing really worth to take advantage of), he was not a great military commander (the writer explains that in all the battles that Mao won, he won because those that were against him were either spies or idiots, or because he was lucky, or because someone from the communist party did all the work and Mao took credit). The author also tried to tell us that Mao was lucky to acquire the nuclear bomb and he actually miscalculated but as in most cases luck was by his side. The issue that the writer really failed to tackle was that when Mao came to power China was in a terrible mess and no one really ruled it. The Russians and the Japanese attacked when they wished and no one could stop them. By the time Mao died China was one of the strongest countries in the world and was united under a single leadership. Yes Mao was a mass murderer, but that doesnt mean he cant be smart or calculating.

The authors chronicle the devious and bloody course of Mao's rise and reign. Are the historical facts skewed? In general, it seems they are well supported. While they compile and document their facts, many new, with care, the authors' voices can be heard imploring the reader to see the reality of the man that dominated China and influenced world affairs for so many decades. Spending 600 pages with the authors, one realizes several things: they are right - that this individual first manipulated people and then ruled by terror, killing, depriving, and turning his political allies against each other. Communism in this story is not a concept of shared wealth but rather an individual's pretense for skewering his contemporaries, instilling unshakable fear in a population to subjugate them, and ultimately as a means to open a pipeline of resources from Stalin. The pretense for achieving the common good repeatedly achieved a common hell for the people and achieved Mao's goals for Mao. Barbaric actions were committed in the name of the people, against the people, largely to make them obey absolutely.

I often wished that the authors' invective and revulsion toward Mao were absent from the prose, but I also must admit, having their sanguine human insights voiced during the rough ride eased the horror of the journey they lead. This book could well be revised in years to come so as to just leave the cold facts. The fuel for the fire of outrage is present in the facts alone.

The narrative held something else new for me: a fresh perspective of global politics as they are in fact played out. It portrays men, with Mao or Stalin the masters, playing chess. The chessman are their people: one che