Word: mao
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...EMPERORS by Harrison E. Salisbury (Little, Brown; $24.95). Enlivened by dozens of interviews, this narrative history of China under communism by a seasoned journalist documents the chaos and corruption of Mao Zedong's reign and the inexorable trend toward glasnost that started under Deng Xiaoping...
Also buttressed by interviews and Chinese publications, The Claws of the Dragon describes Kang -- a Politburo member and one of Mao's closest confidants -- as an opportunist without principles, interested solely in power, and also as a torturer, creator of China's gulag and a habitual opium user. By the early 1940s, the head of the secret police had consolidated his control over the party's social-affairs department, which had a "liquidation" division: "So notorious was Kang's taste for inflicting pain . . . it earned him a title," the King of Hell. The authors compare him with Iago, Rasputin...
...glasnost is coming to Beijing, can demokratizatsia be far behind? Salisbury does not see it. Deng, a "moderate" and pragmatist, was willing to shed as much blood as necessary to put down the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in 1989. His position, like Mao's, was "if he saw himself challenged, he was bound to destroy the challenger." The next emperor, Salisbury predicts, will probably be as pragmatic as Deng. But like Deng he will hold tightly to power and will be ready to order China, as emperors did in dynasties past, "Obey -- and tremble...
BOOKS The chaos, cruelty and corruption of emperor Mao's reign...
What happened? For many years, historians believed that Stalin had given Mao Zedong marching orders. Now comes the first official evidence that Mao acted on his own in the interests of national defense. Smuggled to the West, a collection of Mao's secret telegrams from 1950 appears to vindicate scholars who have long argued that Beijing sought to repel what it feared was U.S. encroachment. Otherwise, Mao warns in one message, "the American invaders will run more rampant" and encourage "the arrogance of reactionaries" in China. Stanford historian Gordon Chang says the cables show how many signals were missed...