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Mao: The Unknown Story is an 832-page book written by the (married) historians Jung Chang and Jon Halliday after ten years of research. It was published in 2005 and paints Mao Zedong, the former paramount leader of China and Chairman of the Communist Party of China, as being responsible for mass murder on a scale similar to, or greater than, that committed under the rule of Hitler or Stalin.

The ten years of research for the book includes interviewing literally hundreds of people who were close to Mao Zedong at some point in his life and revealing the contents of newly released secret Chinese archives. Additional knowlegde comes from their personal experience of living through the madness of the Cultural Revolution in China.

According to the book "Mao Tse-tung, who for decades held absolute power over the lives of one-quarter of the world's population, was responsible for well over 70 million deaths in peacetime, more than any other twentiethcentury leader" and boasted he was willing for half of China to die to achieve military-nuclear superpowerdom.

Authors

Main articles at Jung Chang and Jon Halliday

The author Jung Chang, 张戎, (born 1952) is a British (Chinese-born) writer, best known for her autobiography Wild Swans, which became the biggest grossing non-fiction paperback in publishing history, selling over 10 million copies worldwide, except in mainland China, where it is banned.

Jon Halliday is a Russian historian who was a former Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King's College, University of London.

English language publication

• Publisher: Random House
  • Publication date: February 06, 2005
  • ISBN: 0224071262

• Publisher: Knopf
  • Publication date: October 18, 2005
  • ISBN: 0679422714

"Mao: The Unknown Story is in the Sunday Times Bestseller list this week at number 2" July 2005

Reviews

"It is a mesmerising portrait of tyranny, degeneracy, mass murder and promiscuity, a barrage of revisionist bombshells, and a superb piece of research" says Simon Sebag Montefiore of The Times.

"Jung Chang and Jon Halliday have not, in the whole of their narrative, a good word to say about Mao. In a normal biography, such an unequivocal denunciation would be both suspect and tedious. But the clear scholarship, and careful notes, of The Unknown Story provoke another reaction. Mao Tse-tung's evil, undoubted and well documented, is unequalled throughout modern history." says Roy Hattersley of The Observer.

"The book is an indictment both of the political and the personal Mao that is so unrelenting and comprehensive that it invites disbelief-but the documentation is overwhelming" says Gwynne Dyer of Trinidad & Tobago Express.

Extract

A few paragraphs from a much longer extract at Randon House:

"Mao was the third son, but the first to survive beyond infancy. His Buddhist mother became even more devout to encourage Buddha to protect him. Mao was given the two-part name Tse-tung. Tse, which means 'to shine on', was the name given to all his generation, as preordained when the clan chronicle was first written in the eighteenth century; tung means 'the East'. So his full given name meant 'to shine on the East'. When two more boys were born, in 1896 and 1905, they were given the names Tse-min (min means 'the people') and Tse-tan (tan possibly referred to the local region, Xiangtan).

These names reflected the inveterate aspiration of Chinese peasants for their sons to do well - and the expectation that they could. High positions were open to all through education, which for centuries meant studying Confucian classics. Excellence would enable young men of any background to pass imperial examinations and become mandarins - all the way up to becoming prime minister. Officialdom was the definition of achievement, and the names given to Mao and his brothers expressed the hopes placed on them.

But a grand name was also onerous and potentially tempted fate, so most children were given a pet name that was either lowly or tough, or both. Mao's was 'the Boy of Stone' - Shi san ya-zi. For this second 'baptism' his mother took him to a rock about eight feet high, which was reputed to be enchanted, as there was a spring underneath. After Mao performed obeisance and kowtows, he was considered adopted by the rock. Mao was very fond of this name, and continued to use it as an adult. In 1959, when he returned to Shaoshan and met the villagers for the first - and only - time as supreme leader of China, he began the dinner for them with a quip:'So everyone is here, except my Stone Mother. Shall we wait for her?'" Random House extract

Sources

• "This book will shake the world" by Lisa Allardice, The Guardian, May 26, 2005

"So what made Jung Chang then devote 10 years of her life to researching a hefty political biography of Chairman Mao? Chang aims to expose the true character of the man responsible for so much misery - Chairman Mao. He was as evil as Hitler or Stalin, and did as much damage to mankind as they did, Chang says. And yet the world knows astonishingly little about him."

• "Mao: 10 parts bad, no parts good" by Gwynne Dyer, Trinidad & Tobago Express June 21, 2005

"The book is Mao: The Unknown Story, a massively researched biography of the Great Helmsman that strips all the flattering myths away and reveals the founder of China's Communist regime as a monster with no redeeming qualities whatever. The authors, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, spent ten years traveling through previously untapped archives and interviewing literally hundreds of people who were close to Mao Tse-tung at some point in his life, and the picture they draw of the man is as definitive as it is repellent."

• "The long march to evil", by Roy Hattersley, The Observer, June 5, 2005

"A compelling study of China's red emperor from Jung Chang and Jon Halliday exposes the true scale of Mao's oppression and genocidal manias"

• "Too much hate, too little understanding", by Frank McLynn, The Independent on Sunday, June 5, 2005

"I imagine most people would accept it as axiomatic that a good biography (never mind a great one) of a towering political figure cannot be written from a stance of pure hatred. As we know from Jung Chang's Wild Swans, she suffered grievously during the madness of the Cultural Revolution. But that in itself does not establish one's credentials to be a Mao biographer. The problem with this book is that it is an 800-page polemic, along the lines of Christopher Hitchens' The Trial of Henry Kissinger, but unconscionably prolix, and a sustained polemic does not a biography make."

• "History: Mao by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday" by Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Times, May 29, 2005

"Mao: The Untold Story exposes its subject as probably the most disgusting of the bloody troika of 20th-century tyrant-messiahs, in terms of character, deeds — and number of victims. This study, by Jung Chang, the author of Wild Swans, and her husband, the historian Jon Halliday, is a triumph. It is a mesmerising portrait of tyranny, degeneracy, mass murder and promiscuity, a barrage of revisionist bombshells, and a superb piece of research. This is the first intimate, political biography of the greatest monster of them all — the Red Emperor of China. Using witnesses in China, and new, secret Chinese archives, the authors of this magisterial and damning book estimate that Mao was responsible for 70m deaths. He boasted he was willing “for half of China to die” to achieve military-nuclear superpowerdom."

• "Bad element" by Michael Yahuda, The Guardian, Saturday June 4, 2005

"The author of Wild Swans and her historian husband, Jon Halliday, have torn away the many masks and falsehoods with which Mao and the Communist party of China to this day have hidden the true picture of Mao the man and Mao the ruler. Mao now stands revealed as one of the greatest monsters of the 20th century alongside Hitler and Stalin. Indeed, in terms of sheer numbers of deaths for which he responsible, Mao, with some 70 million, exceeded both."

• The Independent "Ironically, given the years of enforced "self-criticism" sessions that Chang remembers with a shiver, the book gave many a chance finally to speak the bitter truth about life under Mao. Witnesses give heart-wrenching accounts of daily horrors: a loyal Communist couple sell their children to raise party funds; a woman goes into labour on the Long March and is forced to walk with her baby's head hanging between her legs; starving peasants resort to cannibalism. Neatly juxtaposed are the stories of Mao's personal servants, interpreters, bodyguards, doctors and girlfriends. They reveal his opulent lifestyle. A special fish was couriered live over 1,000 kilometres in a plastic bag because Mao hated to eat it frozen. His rice came from special spring-fed waters and, since he hated baths, his servants rubbed him every day with hot towels. In 1953, a special troupe was formed of attractive young women whose main function was to service Mao sexually."

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