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A review by lindseysparks
Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang, Jon Halliday
4.0
I knew going in to this that Mao was responsible for the deaths of about 70 million of his citizens and that a lot of the deaths were from starvation, but I had no idea that he set up limits on what people could eat and for peasants purposely allotted less than what was needed for subsistence. Those were the people growing the food!!! People in the cities were given more and China exported a ton of food. When people began hoarding food, he had their stoves and woks broken so that they had to go to the state-run canteens to eat. He abandoned his children during the Long March. He made doctors of his staff members report to him and in one case refused to let them tell his right-hand man that he had cancer, which at that time would have been treatable.
The author of this biography was born during Mao's rule and left China shortly after his death. She interviewed many people who knew him personally and who lived under his rule. It's extremely in-depth, which is also it's downfall. The first half of the book was just too detailed. I could tell as I was reading that part that I wouldn't retain much of the information. It was just too in the weeds and was before he came to power. It felt like she was just seeing every fact she knew instead of editing down to the meat. The writing was also a bit repetitive in places and could have been more engaging. I've seen numerous reviews of people who gave up and would recommend skipping forward to the Long March if you want to know more but find the first part too much of a slog. The second half is a four-star read and well worth the effort.
The author of this biography was born during Mao's rule and left China shortly after his death. She interviewed many people who knew him personally and who lived under his rule. It's extremely in-depth, which is also it's downfall. The first half of the book was just too detailed. I could tell as I was reading that part that I wouldn't retain much of the information. It was just too in the weeds and was before he came to power. It felt like she was just seeing every fact she knew instead of editing down to the meat. The writing was also a bit repetitive in places and could have been more engaging. I've seen numerous reviews of people who gave up and would recommend skipping forward to the Long March if you want to know more but find the first part too much of a slog. The second half is a four-star read and well worth the effort.