Download or read book The Private Life of Chairman Mao written by Li Zhi-Sui and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-06-22 with total page 734 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “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

Download or read book The Man on Mao s Right written by Ji Chaozhu and published by Random House. This book was released on 2008-07-15 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No other narrative from within the corridors of power has offered as frank and intimate an account of the making of the modern Chinese nation as Ji Chaozhu’s The Man on Mao’s Right. Having served Chairman Mao Zedong and the Communist leadership for two decades, and having become a key figure in China’s foreign policy, Ji now provides an honest, detailed account of the personalities and events that shaped today’s People’s Republic. The youngest son of a prosperous government official, nine-year-old Ji and his family fled Japanese invaders in the late 1930s, escaping to America. Warmly received by his new country, Ji returned its embrace as he came of age in New York’s East Village and then attended Harvard University. But in 1950, after years of enjoying a life of relative ease while his countrymen suffered through war and civil strife, Ji felt driven by patriotism to volunteer to serve China in its conflict with his adoptive country in the Korean War. Ji’s mastery of the English language and American culture launched his improbable career, eventually winning him the role of English interpreter for China’s two top leaders: Premier Zhou Enlai and Party Chairman Mao Zedong. With a unique blend of Chinese insight and American candor, Ji paints insightful portraits of the architects of modern China: the urbane, practical, and avuncular Zhou, the conscience of the People’s Republic; and the messianic, charismatic Mao, student of China’s ancient past–his country’s stern father figure. In Ji’s memoir, he is an eyewitness to modern Chinese history, including the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Nixon summit, and numerous momentous events in Tiananmen Square. As he becomes caught up in political squabbles among radical factions, Ji’s past and charges against him of “incorrect” thinking subject him to scrutiny and suspicion. He is repeatedly sent to a collective farm to be “reeducated” by the peasants. After the Mao years, Ji moves on to hold top diplomatic posts in the United States and the United Kingdom and then serves as under secretary-general of the United Nations. Today, he says, “The Chinese know America better than the Americans know China. The risk is that we misperceive each other.” This highly accessible insider’s chronicle of a struggling people within a developing powerhouse nation is also Ji Chaozhu’s dramatic personal story, certain to fascinate and enlighten Western readers. A riveting biography and unique historical record, The Man on Mao’s Right recounts the heartfelt struggle of a man who loved two powerful nations that were at odds with each other. Ji Chaozhu played an important role in paving the way for what is destined to be known as the Chinese Century. Praise for The Man on Mao’s Right "Brave, beautifully written testimony . A true "fly-on-the-wall" account of the momentous changes in Chinese society and international relations over the last century." --Kirkus Reviews “It is a relief to read an account by an urbane and often witty insider who neither idolizes nor demonizes China's top leaders . . . . Highly recommended." —Library Journal, starred review

Download or read book Mao Zedong Volume 1 1893 1949 written by Pang Xianzhi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mao Zedong remains one of the most controversial figures in modern world history. This 'living legacy' is the subject of intense, ongoing debate both within China and throughout the rest of the world. Here, volume 1 of the only biography of Mao written with full access to the Chinese Communist Party Archives to date is presented in English translation. This volume, the first of three undertaken by the historians of the Party Literature Research Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, covers Mao's career in the pre-revolutionary period, 1893-1949. As an extended official account of Mao, and Mao's thought, this work offers a unique source through which to view the Chinese Communist Party's portrayal of the transformative events of the twentieth century and Mao's pivotal role therein.

Download or read book The World Turned Upside Down written by Yang Jisheng and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yang Jisheng’s The World Turned Upside Down is the definitive history of the Cultural Revolution, in withering and heartbreaking detail. As a major political event and a crucial turning point in the history of the People’s Republic of China, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) marked the zenith as well as the nadir of Mao Zedong’s ultra-leftist politics. Reacting in part to the Soviet Union’s "revisionism" that he regarded as a threat to the future of socialism, Mao mobilized the masses in a battle against what he called "bourgeois" forces within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This ten-year-long class struggle on a massive scale devastated traditional Chinese culture as well as the nation’s economy. Following his groundbreaking and award-winning history of the Great Famine, Tombstone, Yang Jisheng here presents the only history of the Cultural Revolution by an independent scholar based in mainland China, and makes a crucial contribution to understanding those years' lasting influence today. The World Turned Upside Down puts every political incident, major and minor, of those ten years under extraordinary and withering scrutiny, and arrives in English at a moment when contemporary Chinese governance is leaning once more toward a highly centralized power structure and Mao-style cult of personality.

Download or read book Linguistic Engineering written by Ji Fengyuan and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2003-11-30 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Mao and the Chinese Communist Party won power in 1949, they were determined to create new, revolutionary human beings. Their most precise instrument of ideological transformation was a massive program of linguistic engineering. They taught everyone a new political vocabulary, gave old words new meanings, converted traditional terms to revolutionary purposes, suppressed words that expressed "incorrect" thought, and required the whole population to recite slogans, stock phrases, and scripts that gave "correct" linguistic form to "correct" thought. They assumed that constant repetition would cause the revolutionary formulae to penetrate people's minds, engendering revolutionary beliefs and values. In an introductory chapter, Dr. Ji assesses the potential of linguistic engineering by examining research on the relationship between language and thought. In subsequent chapters, she traces the origins of linguistic engineering in China, describes its development during the early years of communist rule, then explores in detail the unprecedented manipulation of language during the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976. Along the way, she analyzes the forms of linguistic engineering associated with land reform, class struggle, personal relationships, the Great Leap Forward, Mao-worship, Red Guard activism, revolutionary violence, Public Criticism Meetings, the model revolutionary operas, and foreign language teaching. She also reinterprets Mao’s strategy during the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, showing how he manipulated exegetical principles and contexts of judgment to "frame" his alleged opponents. The work concludes with an assessment of the successes and failures of linguistic engineering and an account of how the Chinese Communist Party relaxed its control of language after Mao's death.

Download or read book Dialectical Materialism written by Zedong Mao and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New and annotated translations of philosophical essays written by Mao Zedong in 1937, which have come to be regarded as a cornerstone in the development of Chinese Marxism. The editor analyzes their textual, philosophical and historical significance.

Download or read book Red Scarf Girl written by Ji-li Jiang and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-10-26 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publishers Weekly Best Book * ALA Best Book for Young Adults * ALA Notable Children's Book * ALA Booklist Editors' Choice Moving, honest, and deeply personal, Red Scarf Girl is the incredible true story of one girl’s courage and determination during one of the most terrifying eras of the twentieth century. It's 1966, and twelve-year-old Ji-li Jiang has everything a girl could want: brains, popularity, and a bright future in Communist China. But it's also the year that China's leader, Mao Ze-dong, launches the Cultural Revolution—and Ji-li's world begins to fall apart. Over the next few years, people who were once her friends and neighbors turn on her and her family, forcing them to live in constant terror of arrest. And when Ji-li's father is finally imprisoned, she faces the most difficult dilemma of her life. Written in an accessible and engaging style, this page-turning autobiography will appeal to readers of all ages, and it includes a detailed glossary and a pronunciation guide.

Download or read book Rethinking Mao written by Nick Knight and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a different perspective on Mao Zedong, the major architect of the Chinese Revolution and leader of the People's Republic of China until his death in 1976. Utilizing a number of documents written by Mao, here, the author 'rethinks' Mao by subjecting a number his controversial themes to fresh scrutiny.

Download or read book The Cowshed written by Ji Xianlin and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chinese Cultural Revolution began in 1966 and led to a ten-year-long reign of Maoist terror throughout China, in which millions died or were sent to labor camps in the country or subjected to other forms of extreme discipline and humiliation. Ji Xianlin was one of them. The Cowshed is Ji’s harrowing account of his imprisonment in 1968 on the campus of Peking University and his subsequent disillusionment with the cult of Mao. As the campus spirals into a political frenzy, Ji, a professor of Eastern languages, is persecuted by lecturers and students from his own department. His home is raided, his most treasured possessions are destroyed, and Ji himself must endure hours of humiliation at brutal “struggle sessions.” He is forced to construct a cowshed (a makeshift prison for intellectuals who were labeled class enemies) in which he is then housed with other former colleagues. His eyewitness account of this excruciating experience is full of sharp irony, empathy, and remarkable insights into a central event in Chinese history. In contemporary China, the Cultural Revolution remains a delicate topic, little discussed, but if a Chinese citizen has read one book on the subject, it is likely to be Ji’s memoir. When The Cowshed was published in China in 1998, it quickly became a bestseller. The Cultural Revolution had nearly disappeared from the collective memory. Prominent intellectuals rarely spoke openly about the revolution, and books on the subject were almost nonexistent. By the time of Ji’s death in 2009, little had changed, and despite its popularity, The Cowshed remains one of the only testimonies of its kind. As Zha Jianying writes in the introduction, “The book has sold well and stayed in print. But authorities also quietly took steps to restrict public discussion of the memoir, as its subject continues to be treated as sensitive. The present English edition, skillfully translated by Chenxin Jiang, is hence a welcome, valuable addition to the small body of work in this genre. It makes an important contribution to our understanding of that period.”

Download or read book Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party written by Ying Chang Compestine and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2009-09-29 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The summer of 1972, before I turned nine, danger began knocking on doors all over China. Nine-year-old Ling has a very happy life. Her parents are both dedicated surgeons at the best hospital in Wuhan, and her father teaches her English as they listen to Voice of America every evening on the radio. But when one of Mao's political officers moves into a room in their apartment, Ling begins to witness the gradual disintegration of her world. In an atmosphere of increasing mistrust and hatred, Ling fears for the safety of her neighbors, and soon, for herself and her family. For the next four years, Ling will suffer more horrors than many people face in a lifetime. Will she be able to grow and blossom under the oppressive rule of Chairman Mao? Or will fighting to survive destroy her spirit—and end her life? Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party is a 2008 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

Download or read book Mao s Great Famine written by Frank Dikötter and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize An unprecedented, groundbreaking history of China's Great Famine that recasts the era of Mao Zedong and the history of the People's Republic of China. "Between 1958 and 1962, China descended into hell. Mao Zedong threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up to and overtake Britain in less than 15 years The experiment ended in the greatest catastrophe the country had ever known, destroying tens of millions of lives." So opens Frank Dikötter's riveting, magnificently detailed chronicle of an era in Chinese history much speculated about but never before fully documented because access to Communist Party archives has long been restricted to all but the most trusted historians. A new archive law has opened up thousands of central and provincial documents that "fundamentally change the way one can study the Maoist era." Dikötter makes clear, as nobody has before, that far from being the program that would lift the country among the world's superpowers and prove the power of Communism, as Mao imagined, the Great Leap Forward transformed the country in the other direction. It became the site not only of "one of the most deadly mass killings of human history,"--at least 45 million people were worked, starved, or beaten to death--but also of "the greatest demolition of real estate in human history," as up to one-third of all housing was turned into rubble). The experiment was a catastrophe for the natural world as well, as the land was savaged in the maniacal pursuit of steel and other industrial accomplishments. In a powerful mesghing of exhaustive research in Chinese archives and narrative drive, Dikötter for the first time links up what happened in the corridors of power-the vicious backstabbing and bullying tactics that took place among party leaders-with the everyday experiences of ordinary people, giving voice to the dead and disenfranchised. His magisterial account recasts the history of the People's Republic of China.

Download or read book Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung written by Zedong Mao and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book China s Leaders written by David Shambaugh and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-06-25 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China over 70 years ago, five paramount leaders have shaped the fates and fortunes of the nation and the ruling Chinese Communist Party: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping. Under their leaderships, China has undergone an extraordinary transformation from an undeveloped and insular country to a comprehensive world power. In this definitive study, renowned Sinologist David Shambaugh offers a refreshing account of China’s dramatic post-revolutionary history through the prism of those who ruled it. Exploring the persona, formative socialization, psychology, and professional experiences of each leader, Shambaugh shows how their differing leadership styles and tactics of rule shaped China domestically and internationally: Mao was a populist tyrant, Deng a pragmatic Leninist, Jiang a bureaucratic politician, Hu a technocratic apparatchik, and Xi a modern emperor. Covering the full scope of these leaders’ personalities and power, this is an illuminating guide to China’s modern history and understanding how China has become the superpower of today.

Download or read book A Glossary of Political Terms of the People s Republic of China written by Gucheng Li and published by Chinese University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A glossary of political terms of the People's Republic of China is a collection of 560 important and frequently-used Chinese political terms and phrases that appeared between 1949 and 1990. Each entry begins with an explanation of the term and its origin, a description of how and under what circumstances the term was used, and a discussion of the changes of meaning over the years, as well as the political and social significance of the words."--Jacket.

Download or read book Zhiqing written by Kang Xuepei Kang and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-10 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zhiqing: Stories from China’s Special Generation presents the recollections of fourteen men and women who were “sent down” to the countryside during China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Teenagers or young adults at the time, the authors left school to heed Mao’s call for China’s “educated youth” (zhiqing) to go to the poorest provinces and distant borders, where they worked with the local people in villages or on military farms and construction teams. From the Great Northern Wilderness to Hainan Island, their true-to-life stories illustrate the harsh realities of rural existence and Cultural Revolution politics while focusing on personal joys and miseries. While not meant as a political statement, these stories serve as a powerful testimony to the experience of an entire Chinese generation. “It was my distinct pleasure to have served as in-house editor of Kang Xuepei’s In the Countryside, which was initially her masters of arts thesis at SHSU. It was hard to imagine the horrors that these Chinese youth had to go through during that period of Mao’s experiment in social engineering and more amazing to realize that most of them came through it all without intense bitterness toward those who thrust them into such perilous and uncomfortable circumstances. In this book you will find a sampling of the experiences of zhiqing from many perspectives written in strikingly fine prose.”—Paul Ruffin, director, Texas Review Press

Download or read book The Cultural Revolution written by Frank Dikötter and published by Bloomsbury Press. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concluding volume--following Mao's Great Famine and The Tragedy of Liberation--in Frank Dikötter's award-winning trilogy chronicling the Communist revolution in China. After the economic disaster of the Great Leap Forward that claimed tens of millions of lives from 1958–1962, an aging Mao Zedong launched an ambitious scheme to shore up his reputation and eliminate those he viewed as a threat to his legacy. The Cultural Revolution's goal was to purge the country of bourgeois, capitalistic elements he claimed were threatening genuine communist ideology. Young students formed the Red Guards, vowing to defend the Chairman to the death, but soon rival factions started fighting each other in the streets with semiautomatic weapons in the name of revolutionary purity. As the country descended into chaos, the military intervened, turning China into a garrison state marked by bloody purges that crushed as many as one in fifty people. The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962–1976 draws for the first time on hundreds of previously classified party documents, from secret police reports to unexpurgated versions of leadership speeches. After the army itself fell victim to the Cultural Revolution, ordinary people used the political chaos to resurrect the market and hollow out the party's ideology. By showing how economic reform from below was an unintended consequence of a decade of violent purges and entrenched fear, The Cultural Revolution casts China's most tumultuous era in a wholly new light.

Download or read book A Madman s Diary written by Lu Lu Xun and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-06-02 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edition of Lu Xun's Chinese classic A Madman's Diary features both English and Chinese side by side for easy reference and bilingual support. The Lu Xun Bilingual Study Series includes a study guide and additional materials for each book in the series. Published in 1918 by Lu Xun, one of the greatest writers in 20th-century Chinese literature. This short story is one of the first and most influential modern works written in vernacular Chinese and would become a cornerstone of the New Culture Movement. It is the first story in Call to Arms, a collection of short stories by Lu Xun. The story was often referred to as "China's first modern short story". The diary form was inspired by Nikolai Gogol's short story "Diary of a Madman, " as was the idea of the madman who sees reality more clearly than those around him. The "madman" sees "cannibalism" both in his family and the village around him, and he then finds cannibalism in the Confucian classics which had long been credited with a humanistic concern for the mutual obligations of society, and thus for the superiority of Confucian civilization. The story was read as an ironic attack on traditional Chinese culture and a call for a New Culture. The English translation is provided courtesy of the Marxists Internet Archive.