Mao Zedong

Life & Times

by Jonathan Clements

Accessible and affordable illustrated biography about a topical historical figure

Genres: Biography

178 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2006

About the author

Jonathan Clements is an author, translator, biographer and scriptwriter. His non-fiction works include biographies of Confucius, Marco Polo, Mao Zedong, Koxinga and Qin Shihuangdi. He also writes for NEO magazine and is the co-author of encyclopedias of anime and Japanese television dramas.

Reviews

[Murilo Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

For sure the most well organized and designed book I’ve read (probably because it’s part of a book collection called Life & Times). It’s a short book that’s divided into chapters that could not be more meaningful (e.g., The Long March, One Hundred Flowers, Great Leap Forward, The Cultural Revolution, Maoism...).

Despite being very informative and easy to read, the author shows some serious bias (although I agree with him), which is not something people usually look for in this kind of short biographies. It is fact-oriented, but Clements draws some (logical) conclusions that can be very harsh and condemning sometimes and that should be up to the reader to conclude by himself.

In any case, everyone with a bit of critical reasoning will be able to distinguish facts from opinions on this book. Worth a read!

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

as somebody else here noted, it's important to keep your critical thinking skills around while reading this. on the other hand, however, it's a very nicely condensed and (mostly) informative biography

[Kaden Luther · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jonathan Clement's Mao is rightfully effective at what it sets out to do; create a condensed, concise, and informative piece on the titular subject. It is just this, a meager 146 pages of literary content as well as a chronology, map, and notes, and even these 146 pages are interjected with many photos (quite helpful, in fact) and characterized by very large type. In an individual regard, it is mostly just normal, and evokes nothing more inspiring than that, but as I said before it is still informative, if not inconsistently biased. It is best read with objectivity and the ability to approach with criticism. Otherwise, it's just fine. It has a few grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors, but they're infrequent and hardly noticeable anyway.

[Evil Dick · Rating 3 out of 5]

After living in China for about a year, I wanted to know more about this charismatic figure called Mao without engaging in a 600 page book about all his decisions in all the situations he was involved in.

A man who lived an extraordinary life is summed up in 200 pages, which actually is quite little when considering what this dude was up to.

This book is an easy read with all the major incidents summed up in a rather quick succession. The information provided by this book is more or less for people who know nothing or very little about Mao.

After finishing this book I would actually want to read more in depth about the "great leap forward" and off-course the "cultural revolution"

Conclusion: an easy read for those who just want to know what he was up to, but not sufficient for those who want to know what really went on.

[Gilberto]

It was a slow read but interesting if you tough it out.