Customer Reviews

Mao: A Biography: Revised and Expanded Edition

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

After being sorely disappointed by Jung Chang's "Mao The Unknown Story", I got a recommendation from a friend to read Terrils' Mao a Biography. I am only a few chapters in but I just want to say: What a wonderful book. Terril expertly combined his objective views of Mao's life with his exciting narrative style with the flares fit for an epic story and told a detailed and interesting story of this influencial figure.

I have only a slight bit of disappointment: I had some questions about some dramatic turns in his life and hoped the book gave me good answers. But these parts are equally vague in this book, compared to other Mao stories I read.

Still, I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Mao Zedong is an oft-misunderstood figure. Adored as the savior of China by many, reviled as a Stalinist tyrant by others, a balanced biography of this pivotal man is well worth reading for anyone seriously interested in understanding modern China. Ross Terrill's effort is a good choice, and apparently popular in China (though that didn't prevent me from getting this thing confiscated!), yet hardly a recommendation for beginners to the subject.

Terrill writes in dense, awkward prose, which sometimes comes off as charming (he has many interesting turns of phrase and a dry sense of humor) but is also rather tortured. The book is crammed with detail; he clearly did his research. Nevertheless, it leaves out some important background information on Chinese history. I was probably most stunned at the almost complete lack of information on the war against Japan, but other topics, like the civil war in the '40s to the Cultural Revolution with which Mao is most indelibly associated in the West, get vague treatment. This is probably because Terrill approaches this as, well, a biography. He's interested in examining Mao's personality, what made him tick, and what impact he had on the nation he led. Newcomers to Chinese history would do better to first consult a general overview.

As for the portrayal of Mao, it's generally very neutral and balanced, although my sense is that it's a little on the positive side. Mao comes across as a man genuinely interested in doing good and helping his people and definitely intellectual and scholarly, although given to erratic mood swings and egotism (like many other dictators). It's full of both interesting anecdotes (Mao liked to swim and write poetry, for instance) and hard-hitting analyses of the always fascinating realm of Chinese politics. Those willing to navigate the dense writing, tortured sentences, and sometimes vague background detail will find a good story in here.

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.

As the first presdent of China, Mao helped Chinese people got the freedom. But he is a controversial person in the world. I think the reason is that people do not really know what is the real Mao. This book is written by Rose Terrill who is a non-Chinese writer. The writer judges Mao objectively.