The Private Life Of Chairman Mao

“The most revealing book ever published on Mao, perhaps on any dictator in history.”—Professor Andrew J. Nathan, Columbia University From 1954 until Mao Zedong's death twenty-two years later, Dr. Li Zhisui was the Chinese ruler's personal physician, which put him in daily—and increasingly intimate—contact with Mao and his inner circle. in The Private Life of Chairman Mao, Dr. Li vividly reconstructs his extraordinary experience at the center of Mao's decadent imperial court. Dr. Li clarifies numerous long-standing puzzles, such as the true nature of Mao's feelings toward the United States and the Soviet Union. He describes Mao's deliberate rudeness toward Khrushchev and reveals the actual catalyst of Nixon's historic visit. Here are also surprising details of Mao's personal depravity (we see him dependent on barbiturates and refusing to wash, dress, or brush his teeth) and the sexual politics of his court. To millions of Chinese, Mao was more god than man, but for Dr. Li, he was all too human. Dr. Li's intimate account of this lecherous, paranoid tyrant, callously indifferent to the suffering of his people, will forever alter our view of Chairman Mao and of China under his rule. Praise for The Private Life of Chairman Mao “From now one no one will be able to pretend to understand Chairman Mao's place in history without reference to this revealing account.”—Professor Lucian Pye, Massachusetts Institute of Technology “Dr. Li does for Mao what the physician Lord Moran's memoir did for Winston Churchill—turns him into a human being. Here is Mao unveiled: eccentric, demanding, suspicious, unregretful, lascivious, and unfailingly fascinating. Our view of Mao will never be the same again.”—Ross Terrill, author of China in Our Time “An extraordinarily intimate portrait of Mao. [Dr. Li] portrays [Mao's imperial court] as a place of boundless decadence, licentiousness, selfishness, relentless toadying and cutthroat political intrigue.”—Richard Bernstein, The New York Times “One of the most provocative books on Mao to appear since the publication of Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China.”—Paul G. Pickowicz, The Wall Street Journal

Herinneringen van de lijfarts van de Chinese leider aan de jaren 1954-1976.

Draws on extensive, previously unavailable Russian documents to reveal details about Mao Zedong's rise to power and leadership in China, covering such topics as his health, alleged affairs, and controversial political decisions.

Everyone who came in close contact with Mao was taken aback at the anarchy of his personal ways. He ate idiosyncratically. He became increasingly sexually promiscuous as he aged. He would stay up much of the night, sleep during much of the day, and at times he would postpone sleep, remaining awake for thirty-six hours or more, until tension and exhaustion overcame him. Yet many people who met Mao came away deeply impressed by his intellectual reach, originality, style of power-within-simplicity, kindness toward low-level staff members, and the aura of respect that surrounded him at the top of Chinese politics. It would seem difficult to reconcile these two disparate views of Mao. But in a fundamental sense there was no brick wall between Mao the person and Mao the leader. This biography attempts to provide a comprehensive account of this powerful and polarizing historical figure.

As a result of Deng Xiaoping's reform initiatives, the austere and colorless collectivism of the Maoist era was supplanted by an upscale entrepreneurial ethos labeled "socialism with Chinese characteristics." For some Chinese this meant new and unprecedented opportunities for upward mobility; for others it meant rising personal vulnerability and marginalization. Today, a scant two decades after Mao's death, few traces of the Chairman's essential zeitgeist remain. Maoism, the spartan, puritanical credo fashioned by a small band of dedicated revolutionaries in the 1930s and 1940s, is moribund. - Preface.

China Under Communism examines how Marxism took root, flourished and developed within the context of an ancient Chinese civilization. Through analysis of China's history and traditional culture, the author explores the nature of Chinese communism and how it has diverged from the Soviet model. This book also provides insight into the changing perceptions Westerners have of the Chinese, and vice versa. Key features include: * assessment of controversial issues: The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and Mao's record * coverage of gender and family, ethnicity, nationalism, and popular culture * long historical context. This timely evaluation details how China's political and economic policies have been inextricably linked, and assesses past failures and successes, as well as major problems for the future.