Mao The Unknown Story by Jung Shang and Jon Halliday So far by page 45
Reviews

From: Booky
Category: Books
Date: 08 November 2005

Review

I am not sure if the title is meant to be ironic or perhaps the book was written for a different market. I think that there is no doubt amongst the majority in the western world that Mao comes in to the category of evil dictator, yet this book, by page 45 (I have not yet read further but will), is clearly trying to re-educate the reader and convince him/her of this point. It reads as almost a chronology of points indicating the brutality and straight forward awfulness of this man. It is as if it was written for the benefit of some other culture where Mao remains a hero. Rather like watching Fahrenheit 9/11 there is the feeling that this is most definitely propaganda, but is being preached to the converted (even if most of us don’t quite know what he did – hence the Unknown in the title). And some how this type of propaganda makes me want to believe the opposite of what I am being told (surely he must have had some kind of communist inclinations in him?) unlike Moore’s film whose fast pace within the dark mystery of a cinema with surges of sugar going to the brain, made me feel uplifted, even if the tone was a bit condescending and didactic.