Mao Zedong: A Life by Jonathan D. Spence (PDF)

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“Spence draws upon his extensive knowledge of Chinese politics and culture to create an illuminating picture of Mao. . . . Superb.” (Chicago Tribune)From humble origins in the provinces, Mao Zedong rose to absolute power, unifying with an iron fist a vast country torn apart by years of weak leadership, colonialism, and war. This sharply drawn and insightful account brings to life this modern-day emperor and the tumultuous era that he did so much to shape. Jonathan Spence captures Mao in all his paradoxical grandeur and sheds light on the radical transformation he unleashed that still reverberates in China today.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐In the Penguin Lives series, I’ve previously read short biographies of Beethoven, Churchill, da Vinci, Dickens, and Napoleon. In each of these, the author touches on the highpoints of a great career while developing an approach that enlivens his or her subject. Smiley and Morris, for example, convey the miracle of Dickens and Beethoven through their informed awe. Keegan brings Churchill to the page through generous use of anecdote and snippets from his inspirational speeches. Johnson makes Napoleon real by positioning him as the template for 20th century totalitarianism. Finally, Dr. Nuland takes a contrarian approach–da Vinci as an anatomist–that does brings an aspect of his unique genius to light.MAO ZEDONG differs from these Penguin Lives biographies because Jonathan Spence, IMHO, never really transcends a basic chronological approach to his subject. While this approach has value for readers (like me) who have a mere headline-news grasp of 20th century Chinese history, this doesn’t really get the man onto the page. Instead, what the reader gets is Mao’s activities in times of relentless warfare, as well as profound political, economic, and cultural change. Spence shows the vast landscape change. But Mao, the man, and why he chooses to be irresponsible, reckless, evil, and/or great, isn’t really in the book. In this biography, he’s just too remote and historical.Nonetheless, Spence provides an excellent introduction. There, he observes that Mao seemed most comfortable within a world shaped by “order’s opposite, the world of misrule.” Here, Spence is referring to the European Middle Ages, when “great households chose a Lord of Misrule” who “presided over revels that briefly reversed or parodied the conventional social and economic hierarchies.” Later, Spence observes: “It was Mao’s terrible accomplishment to seize on such insights from earlier Chinese philosophers, combine them with elements drawn from Western socialist thought, and to use both in tandem to prolong the limited concept of misrule into a long-drawn-out adventure in upheaval.”Read this short biography. But you might find, like me, that as Spence tells Mao’s story, it doesn’t exactly fall into this context.Rounded up to four stars.

⭐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.

⭐Not knowing much about China and the life of Mao Zedong except the very basics (little red book, cultural revolution, millions of deaths), I picked this short book up to learn more. I found the first half, focused on Mao’s early life and struggles the most interesting. It’s somewhat stunning how an intellectually curious farm boy eventually ended up as the leader of all China. The later half of the book, dealing with Mao in power after 1949, is somehow less interesting – sometimes it seems like things are just happening, mostly bad things, and as Chairman, he sometimes seems to be not terribly involved. Overall, this book feels like a good introduction. It’s brief, just 178 pages, and fairly concise. I personally wasn’t ready to read some 700 to 1,000 page tome on this subject, so in that sense, this is kind of a great book – you can learn some about Mao, China and the rise of communism across the 20th century, but not be overwhelmed or bogged down in excessive detail.

⭐well written and educating about the life in China from the war against Japan to the civil war, and the communist time. Highly recommended if you want to learn about China through a story,

⭐RAS

⭐

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