Customer Reviews

Mao Zedong: A Life (A Penguin Life)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Jonathan Spence's biography of Mao was my first experience with the new Penguin Lives series, and I was unsure what to expect. Certainly, one cannot expect too much from a biography of one of the major political figures of the 20th century that offers only 178 pages of text and 10 pages of endnotes. But I was game to try it, since I knew very little about Mao and gathered I would learn a lot in a relatively short time from this biography.

Spence certainly succeeds in compressing most of the major events of Mao's life into this thin volume, and concisely reviews much of Mao's political thought and how it evolved. He also does a good job of mining source materials, particularly some of Mao's more obscure writing and poetry. But my major frustration in reading this book was a feeling that I never learned much about Mao as an individual human being, except that he came from obscure bourgeois peasant roots, that he was "married" at least four times and had at least ten children with whom he had rather distant relationships, and that as the years passed, he became more and more of a megalomaniac. I would also fault the book for giving minimal attention to the history of the times and to Mao's principal comrades in arms. (For example, Zhou Enlai does not appear until the final quarter of the book and gets minimal mention at that. The Long March gets only 2-3 pages.) Also somehwat curious is that the book lacks an index.

All of that said, however, this is a remarkably informative book given its length. I should emphasize that the text on each page measures lightly under 6 x 4 inches, too--so not only is it a short book, but also a small book. I put the book down eager to learn more about Mao, which I suppose does commend it to other readers who know as little as I did before I read it.

I felt this book--more a monograph than a biography--was a bit too cursory to really get at the heart of Mao. The war years are covered in just a few pages, and the period of Mao's reign is covered in much the same fashion. I found myself wanting to know a lot more. Considering the relative importance of Mao's reign compared with his early life, it's a little strange so much time is spent in these early years. After reading the book, I still don't get a clear picture of how Mao was able to parlay himself into the leading figure in communist party and then how he was able to keep so much power to himself later on. In short, it was a fair introduction, but it lacked depth and balance.

For better or worse, I'm a vetran reader of Mao biographies. Jonathan Spence's biography was intially appealing given both his history of success in writing about the Chinese revolution and the relatively compact nature of this book. Given that I hadn't read a Mao article or bio in a little while, I was hoping Mr. Spence's book would be a Mao refresher with some added perspectives and insight only Mr. Spence could give. Although wrong in the second sense and right in the first, the book did prove to be interesting.

The book is, and I imagine by design, a very incomplete look at Mao's life. For example, only until well after the half way point is there any mention of the all important Zhou En-Lai. In the same sense, Mr. Spence chooses only to provide very specific details and stories regarding Mao's life. Thus, the perception of Mao isn't really of human but a slogan of some sort. If this is a reader's first Mao biography, I imagine the reader to be both confused and wanting after reading the book.

Instead, Mr. Spence chooses to focus specifically on the question of why China went nuts for Mao, and what Mao role in this was. Because of this, despite the length, the book was a success. As a result, the book is a commentary on Chinese culture through the Mao period, and a note on demigods. Passages about Mao, and the book as a whole are targeted to answer these questions.

For the Novice Mao reader, I'm convinced the book will be a disapointment. Conversely, this book is in an interpretation of China through a difficult period explained through one character: Mao.

Jonathan Spence is probably the leading Western scholar on Chinese history, and for that reason alone this book is worth reading. Spence provides the reader with a concise overview of Mao's life with an appropriate amount of commentary on issues that help the reader understand Mao's personality. This focus on Mao as a person (instead of Mao as an historical actor) is, in my opinion, the book's strongest feature.

I'd like to spend a second or two dealing with what some of the other reviewers of this book have said, because I think several of them have missed the mark. Some people seem to be disquieted because Spence spends so little time covering the historical aspects of major events, such as the Long March, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. However, the point of this book is not to give a detailed account of Mao's role in modern Chinese history, but rather to provide an image of Mao that readers can get their hands around. Spence accomplishes this task nicely, and reviewers misunderstand his purpose when they criticize this book for its lack of coverage of such important events.

Another set of reviewers are disillusioned with the book because they feel it does not adequately show how Mao went from a middle-peasantry childhood to become the leader of China. I don't know what these reviewers think the book is missing in particular; I think Spence does a good job of capturing the essence of Mao's life through time, and Spence stops at each categorical change in Mao's life to explain what was going on that led to Mao's upward shift in stature.

I give this book three stars because I think it is a book without a definable demographic in terms of readership. The content is too surface-level to be of much use to even the moderately informed Chinese history student. At the same time, Spence's sense of irony and paradox will probably be lost on the novice reader because of a lack of contextual understanding. Additionally, Spence leaves unexplained things that not all readers will understand (such as the role of various political bodies that get brought up). So it is that, in my opinion, this book is at times too advanced for the novice, and yet generally too introductory for the more experienced.

I myself didn't learn a whole lot about Mao's life that I didn't already know. Spence's scholarship is very good, however, and there were a decent amount of details that I didn't know beforehand which I found interesting. Spence is very even-handed in terms of moral judgement, which is an important distinction between this book and others that present Mao as either a Saint/Savior or an Antichrist. As a concise biography I think Spence accomplished the worthy task of providing an image of Mao that readers can understand, and on that basis I would recommend this book to people looking to get a better feel for Mao the person.

I didn't know much about Mao before reading this biography, and I thought it was a fascinating page-turner that humanizes the icon. It is true that there is a lot of focus on Mao's early years, but those formative years help us to make sense of the Mao of the Little Red Book. How could such a totalitarian dictator develop as a person? Where did he come from and how do we make sense of his life in the context of his times? This biography answers those questions and more. The book is authoritative, comprehensive, and fun to read.

This is a brief introduction to the life of Mao for the non-specialist. As such, it fufills its mission beautifully. Short, very readable and highly reccomended.

A common error in book reviewing is reviewing the book you wanted the author to have written, and not the book at hand. Spence's book isn't a definitive biography of Mao, but it was never intended to be.

The book is incredibly brief, and the gaps on the material are very big. I am no authority on the subject whatsoever, and indeed there may be gaps in the actual record of Mao's life, but this book's prose sometimes is exhausting, boring and insipid. Accounts appear to be taken almost verbatum and compiled from different sources, lending the book a monster without a head, or a tail. There are huge gaps in the story, as for example, the years of World War II (1939-1945), which are almost completely out of the book, except for two lines in chapter 7. The author does not seem to care in the least about this gap and, as throughout this book, goes on relentlessly forward as if propelled by the urge to finish the book. This book does not lend itself to many insights as to how or why a poor and half-witted peasant from souther Hunan would become the leader of the most populous country on Earth. The author depicts Mao as such at the beginning, but never explains how, or what exactly brought his followers together. Even communism is portrayed from a strange perspective, and it seems too a ludicrous play on history. In this light, Mao's life and the chinese struggle seemed hopelessly and utterly absurd and pointless. Even it they might have been, does it mean that the book will be pointless too? The only rescatable thing might be the references to other works in the subject.

Spence's biography of Mao, while not satisfying to most of the other Amazon reviewers, is a fairly good portrait of the man. If you are looking for the whole sweep of Chinese history in the twentieth century, then this is the wrong book. If you are interested in Mao the person, this book is a fine beginning point. Obviously, the Penguin biographies are short reads, so Spence has focused his writing sharply on Mao himself which causes him to leave out most of the context. Contrary to one of the other reviews, Spence's picture of Mao is not updated propaganda but, rather, punctures the penumbra surrounding Mao to show what seems to be a somewhat demented individual in his years of power. I came away from the book with a new understanding of how little the epithet "helmsman" fits Mao--THAT is all propaganda. Much like Stalin, Mao was able to maneuver himself into power over and above smarter and more talented individuals. The results for China were disastrous.

Jonathan Spence's MAO feels like it's one of his three hour lectures on Chinese history. It's so incredibly even that it's bland. Spence presents each detail of Mao's life with the same monotnous detail (or lack of) that you can't seem to seperate what's big and what's not. It's as if the author doesn't have an identity, he takes an incredibly unstable life and packages it with a very matter-of-fact attitude. When the events of Mao's life reach a peak, the writing doesn't.

It's emotionless, but not boring. It's a quick read, and it may very well peak an interest, but how slight or large is probably a measure of the style you feel most comfortable with. The PENGUIN LIVES series is like an extended Strathern 90 Minutes course: they're too short and pretty for you to avoid for long, and I suppose it's probably good to prescribe to the philosophy that it was worth reading if you learned something.

I was initially very sceptical about a biography series backed by Penguin Books, and the fact, that only two of the books in the series are about Asian subjects, tends to confirm it. I therefore started reading MAO ZEDONG with low expectations. That the author was Jonathan D. Spence I accepted as a publicity ploy, since Spence is one of the most prolific and readable authors on Chinese subjects, particularly the modern period. I, therefore, looked at this very slim and very small volume as a throwback to the old Everyman series of books, and other Depression-era series. I asked myself while reading, if the layman would want to learn more about this subject after reading this volume.

This is not a scholarly tome, so most readers will not be intimidated by it. It is written very accessibly, with few endnotes, and is a quick read. It, however, restricts itself too much, almost as if the author (or the editors) cut material for the sake of the book's physical design. Aside form the absence of huge periods of Mao's life, his relationship with other figures of his time is de-focused, almost like Mao himself tried to do. It's as if, trying to keep a focus on Mao, the author cut Mao's competitors out of the book.

I would hesitate to call this book propaganda, but it is little removed from the advertisements and paraphenalia pasted with Mao's words and face. As a matter of fact, the book feeds on that charisma. Although every person deserves a fair treatment by his/her biographer, Mao (and many other controversial figures) require a more philosophical approach. After all, Mao was responsible for the deaths of his compatriots and subjects, and some care must be given when analyzing Mao's life. Spence is too fair to Mao in this volume. My first wquestion was: how does an individual who leads a revolution become a murderer, of strangers and colleagues? What of the others who helped Mao? What of his role in some of the most earth-shattering events in global history? Sadly, this book is too small (in scope, size, and spirit) to tell us.

Some people, after reading this slim volume, may be so intriqued by the absence of material, that they will continue to study about Mao. But, this book is not, and cannot be, the last word.