Mao: The Unknown Story is a 2005 biography of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong (1893–1976) written by the husband and wife team of writer Jung Chang and historian Jon Halliday, and depicts Mao as being responsible for more deaths in peacetime than Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin.
In conducting their research for the book over the course of a decade, the authors interviewed hundreds of people who were close to Mao Zedong at some point in his life, used recently published memoirs from Chinese political figures, and explored newly opened archives in China and Russia. Chang herself lived through the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, which she described in her earlier book, Wild Swans.
The book quickly became a best-seller in Europe and North America and received overwhelming praise from reviews in national newspapers. Academic reviews from China specialists were, on the whole, more critical.
Read more about Mao: The Unknown Story: Synopsis, Response To The Book, English Language Publication, Chinese Language Publication
Famous quotes containing the word story:
“Our ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every state which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of the northern forests who were.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)