Fishing Wars And Environmental Change In Late Imperial And Modern China Book

I had no idea.

Everyone knows about Mao. He's on all the RMB notes, the Beatles sing about him, his face is now emblazoned on the ironic t-shirts of liberal arts students across the world. He is everywhere in China.

Like all dictators, you get the idea that he was officially a great man and unofficially a real son of a bitch. It is commonplace, when discussing dictators, to hear "pragmatic, realpolitik" opinions about the positive economic or political impact of these leaders. Not all bad, one is supposed to conclude.

Well, Mao is as close to "all bad" as I've encountered. Certainly, beyond his military days before 1952 I've seen little evidence of his good side. This is an admittedly emotional stance, however.

Mao's Last Revolution is a serious book about a very specific period: 1966-1976 and the Cultural Revolution. It is not strictly "academic" - any such work would probably span three or four times as much as this already substantial tome. The authors do, however, take care to detail each important event on a month-to-month basis, introducing dozens of key players and political movements through most of China's provinces.

Although the prose is easy to read, the amount of detail and the dry tone can bore you down. The unbelievable events that are successfully portrayed, however, compensate more than enough to keep you going. The details that color the narrative make a world of difference to just reading the Cultural Revolution wikipedia.

I can't recommend this book more if you are really interested in this period.