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China's Leaders: From Mao to Now
Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China over 70 years ago, five paramount leaders have shaped the fates and fortunes of the nation and the ruling Chinese Communist Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping. Under their leaderships, China has undergone an extraordinary transformation from an undeveloped and insular country to a comprehensive world power. In this definitive study, renowned Sinologist David Shambaugh offers a refreshing account of China’s dramatic post-revolutionary history through the prism of those who ruled it. Exploring the persona, formative socialization, psychology, and professional experiences of each leader, Shambaugh shows how their differing leadership styles and tactics of rule shaped China domestically and Mao was a populist tyrant, Deng a pragmatic Leninist, Jiang a bureaucratic politician, Hu a technocratic apparatchik, and Xi a modern emperor. Covering the full scope of these leaders’ personalities and power, this is an illuminating guide to China’s modern history and understanding how China has become the superpower of today.
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Published April 19, 2022
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About the author
David Shambaugh
44 books66 followersDavid Leigh Shambaugh is an American political scientist, Sinologist and policy advisor. He currently serves as the Gaston Sigur Professor of Asian Studies, Political Science, and International Affairs at George Washington University, where he is also the director of the China Policy Program at GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution (2024—). He was previously a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Shambaugh served in the Department of State, and on the White House National Security Council staff during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. As an author, Shambaugh has authored 12 and edited 21 books, and over 200 scholarly articles and newspaper op-eds. (Source: Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
September 27, 2021
2.5 stars. In the preface of this book, Shambaugh writes: "I have intended this book to be more for the general public and students than for my scholarly colleagues, so I hope they will remember this when they read it." Fair enough. He goes on to mention cranking this thing out over 9 months in his summer home in Michigan. So, in a nutshell, we can take this to mean there are no new sources (or original scholarship?) here and he made an effort to whip this thing off in time to make the 2021 deadline for cashing in on the centenary of the founding of the CCP. I don't mean to come off as overly cynical, but it's clear that many of the big names in the field have been rushing to cash in this year by putting out books for the general public.
First, I'll say something positive: I think David Shambaugh is a really knowledgeable Sinologist who's done some great work, so don't let my perhaps-overly-cynical review jaundice you on him or put you off reading his other work, which I think is totally worth reading. I really appreciate his willingness to take clear-cut positions on various issues, and he really is an excellent guide to certain topics. And to keep being fair: I did learn some stuff here, especially from the chapters on Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao (which is clearly Shambaugh's wheelhouse and probably where he should have focused). So, for a reader with minimal prior background who wants a very short, high-level general history of the PRC which focuses on the biographies and main policies of its leaders, maybe this could serve as a handy reference.
Now I'll share some more more critical points:
1. In a sense, what this book really is is Shambaugh sharing his general intuitions and impressions, alongside some suggestions for further reading. He comes off like a senior prof at a bar regaling his grad students with anecdotes and hot takes. For instance, at numerous (numerous!) points in the book Shambaugh conspicuously inserts himself into the narrative, mentioning that he was in a given city in China at the time, or that he personally attended the Olympics in Beijing, or that he personally met so-and-so, and at one point he even treats us to a half-page photo of him shaking hands with Hu Jintao. Cool. Honestly, this probably could have worked quite well in a slightly different context. Shambaugh undoubtedly has met and spoken with a lot of CCP insiders, and I would highly value his intuitions on the CCP and love for him to lean into that aspect of things. But I guess that would ultimately be more of a podcast or an article (or his previous book) than a book meant for a general readership.
2. Focus. This book is in large part just a high-level recap of the history of the PRC, focusing on its leaders. I suppose I had hoped to either learn something more about some of these leaders or to hear some arm-chair-psychologizing-from-a-distance about how their upbringing affected their personalities and how their personalities impacted their tenures. Better yet, what are all these insiders Shambaugh seems to have access to saying on the subjects? To be fair, there is a little of this, in the first chapter things start promisingly and Shambaugh attempts to answer those questions, but then things basically just turn into a boilerplate high-level recounting of the main events in PRC history (with the possible exception of the Jiang and Hu chapters).
3. The chapter on Mao is a write-off and can be skipped completely, in my opinion. Clearly Shambaugh has his mind made up on Mao and isn't in the market to offer any new analysis or go beyond the standard tropes. This is a shame as despite the (large) handful of biographies that exist on Mao, I would argue the definitive one has yet to be written. Moreover, there would seem to be a lot of fertile ground for someone interested in pchy0-analyzing how Mao's life experiences shaped his personality and how these shaped his time in power. Oh well.
4. The chapter on Deng is a little better, but still pretty unnecessary. Clearly, Shambaugh is much more sympathetic to Deng and so the narrative reflects this. The hyper-critical lens used to view the Mao era gives way to one sympathetic to all the challenges the "pragmatic Leninist" had to face. Anyways, if you were interested in learning about Deng and this period of PRC history, you could just read Ezra Vogel's biography, which Shambaugh draws from.
5. The Jiang and Hu chapters were actually pretty good. All of the value I got from the book I would say I got from these two chapters.
6. The Xi chapter had a few interesting points, but it was largely more boiler-plate, high-level stuff. Also, I'm not totally sure Shambaugh is getting everything right here. For example, he writes that under Xi "There has been a significant tightening of foreign investment and corporate operating environment..." Maybe. But then again it seems like, for example, the new PRC Foreign Investment Law that came into affect in 2020 would suggest that Xi still sees value in liberalizing some areas of the economy. A more thoughtful analyses might also have considered how sanctions might impact innovation in the PRC, but I digress.
7. Finally, it occurs to me that maybe this whole project was ill-conceived. Maybe there just isn't as much value in this kind of high-level, made-for-a-general-readership comparative "study" of the 5 CCP paramount leaders as I thought there might be. Since what we actually get here is a quick rundown of the main events of PRC history, I feel like the reader would be better served by just buying a general history of the PRC. Conversely, if you're interested in a particular leader, maybe just buy a biography on that leader. I really do think Shambaugh has a lot of interesting thoughts and intuitions that I'd like to hear, but in the final analyses, the book is a bit of a misfire.
First, I'll say something positive: I think David Shambaugh is a really knowledgeable Sinologist who's done some great work, so don't let my perhaps-overly-cynical review jaundice you on him or put you off reading his other work, which I think is totally worth reading. I really appreciate his willingness to take clear-cut positions on various issues, and he really is an excellent guide to certain topics. And to keep being fair: I did learn some stuff here, especially from the chapters on Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao (which is clearly Shambaugh's wheelhouse and probably where he should have focused). So, for a reader with minimal prior background who wants a very short, high-level general history of the PRC which focuses on the biographies and main policies of its leaders, maybe this could serve as a handy reference.
Now I'll share some more more critical points:
1. In a sense, what this book really is is Shambaugh sharing his general intuitions and impressions, alongside some suggestions for further reading. He comes off like a senior prof at a bar regaling his grad students with anecdotes and hot takes. For instance, at numerous (numerous!) points in the book Shambaugh conspicuously inserts himself into the narrative, mentioning that he was in a given city in China at the time, or that he personally attended the Olympics in Beijing, or that he personally met so-and-so, and at one point he even treats us to a half-page photo of him shaking hands with Hu Jintao. Cool. Honestly, this probably could have worked quite well in a slightly different context. Shambaugh undoubtedly has met and spoken with a lot of CCP insiders, and I would highly value his intuitions on the CCP and love for him to lean into that aspect of things. But I guess that would ultimately be more of a podcast or an article (or his previous book) than a book meant for a general readership.
2. Focus. This book is in large part just a high-level recap of the history of the PRC, focusing on its leaders. I suppose I had hoped to either learn something more about some of these leaders or to hear some arm-chair-psychologizing-from-a-distance about how their upbringing affected their personalities and how their personalities impacted their tenures. Better yet, what are all these insiders Shambaugh seems to have access to saying on the subjects? To be fair, there is a little of this, in the first chapter things start promisingly and Shambaugh attempts to answer those questions, but then things basically just turn into a boilerplate high-level recounting of the main events in PRC history (with the possible exception of the Jiang and Hu chapters).
3. The chapter on Mao is a write-off and can be skipped completely, in my opinion. Clearly Shambaugh has his mind made up on Mao and isn't in the market to offer any new analysis or go beyond the standard tropes. This is a shame as despite the (large) handful of biographies that exist on Mao, I would argue the definitive one has yet to be written. Moreover, there would seem to be a lot of fertile ground for someone interested in pchy0-analyzing how Mao's life experiences shaped his personality and how these shaped his time in power. Oh well.
4. The chapter on Deng is a little better, but still pretty unnecessary. Clearly, Shambaugh is much more sympathetic to Deng and so the narrative reflects this. The hyper-critical lens used to view the Mao era gives way to one sympathetic to all the challenges the "pragmatic Leninist" had to face. Anyways, if you were interested in learning about Deng and this period of PRC history, you could just read Ezra Vogel's biography, which Shambaugh draws from.
5. The Jiang and Hu chapters were actually pretty good. All of the value I got from the book I would say I got from these two chapters.
6. The Xi chapter had a few interesting points, but it was largely more boiler-plate, high-level stuff. Also, I'm not totally sure Shambaugh is getting everything right here. For example, he writes that under Xi "There has been a significant tightening of foreign investment and corporate operating environment..." Maybe. But then again it seems like, for example, the new PRC Foreign Investment Law that came into affect in 2020 would suggest that Xi still sees value in liberalizing some areas of the economy. A more thoughtful analyses might also have considered how sanctions might impact innovation in the PRC, but I digress.
7. Finally, it occurs to me that maybe this whole project was ill-conceived. Maybe there just isn't as much value in this kind of high-level, made-for-a-general-readership comparative "study" of the 5 CCP paramount leaders as I thought there might be. Since what we actually get here is a quick rundown of the main events of PRC history, I feel like the reader would be better served by just buying a general history of the PRC. Conversely, if you're interested in a particular leader, maybe just buy a biography on that leader. I really do think Shambaugh has a lot of interesting thoughts and intuitions that I'd like to hear, but in the final analyses, the book is a bit of a misfire.
October 13, 2024
A quite intriguing and highly readable portrait of China’s most influential communist leaders, as well as an informative comparative analysis on their different types of leadership, policies and personalities.
July 22, 2021
Worthy reading
Absolutely gripping and interesting tales. Prof Shambuag had it. What he intended. The comparitive analysis of major Chinese leaders brought forward the certain aspects/ trends in the Chinese society that needs to be observed and looked at by the opinion makers in the world.
Absolutely gripping and interesting tales. Prof Shambuag had it. What he intended. The comparitive analysis of major Chinese leaders brought forward the certain aspects/ trends in the Chinese society that needs to be observed and looked at by the opinion makers in the world.
February 13, 2022
Very interesting and lucid
A very interesting and lucid overview over China’s leaders from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping. Shambaugh does not hesitate to present his own views, but this adds to the perspective and his description is usually both fair and balanced. Recommended reading for anyone who wants to understand what is going on in China.
A very interesting and lucid overview over China’s leaders from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping. Shambaugh does not hesitate to present his own views, but this adds to the perspective and his description is usually both fair and balanced. Recommended reading for anyone who wants to understand what is going on in China.
July 28, 2024
I wish it had delved more in Xi Jin Ping, but this book is extremely valuable as a primer into the 5 presidents of the People's Republic of China. Will need to read other books to get a good knowledge from the last 15 years.
November 8, 2024
Pool book, definitely worth a read.
July 13, 2022
David Shambaugh knows a lot about the rulers of the PRC, and he wants you to know that he knows a lot about them too. His writing style, while sometimes meandering, is nevertheless fluent. His occasional sociological and psychoanalytical approach to the leaders passed over my head a little as I'm most interested in the core historical facts, but in general it's a fascinating read. I also appreciated his use of Chinese terms and the audiobook's competent reading of them. I certainly learnt a lot about PRC terminology.
While some will be more critical of Shambaugh's rambling and occasional repeating of information (which I personally don't mind), the only thing that grated on me was that at times Shambaugh writes of other revolutions of which he has less knowledge and makes some unnecessary mistakes - for example, on the first page of the Mao Zedong chapter, he confuses his description of the Thermidorian reaction as "Robespierre's usurpation" (when its actually the reaction that takes place when Robespierre is ousted!), while what I think he's referring to what the fear of the Russian revolutionaries of a new 'Napoleon' arising. He references this again on page 74. He also oversimplifies Mao's trip to the Soviet Union and the background of the split with Stalin on page 37.
But these are small issues with details that are not the main focus. When it comes to CPC leaders, Shambaugh is master. His book is comprehensive and I learnt so much, especially about Jiang Zemin, who Shambaugh somewhat admires. For a book about the Chinese Communist Party, Shambaugh is not overly vitriolic to the detriment of his scholarship. Many other writers on China could learn from him. I am looking forward to reading more of Shambaugh's work in the future.
While some will be more critical of Shambaugh's rambling and occasional repeating of information (which I personally don't mind), the only thing that grated on me was that at times Shambaugh writes of other revolutions of which he has less knowledge and makes some unnecessary mistakes - for example, on the first page of the Mao Zedong chapter, he confuses his description of the Thermidorian reaction as "Robespierre's usurpation" (when its actually the reaction that takes place when Robespierre is ousted!), while what I think he's referring to what the fear of the Russian revolutionaries of a new 'Napoleon' arising. He references this again on page 74. He also oversimplifies Mao's trip to the Soviet Union and the background of the split with Stalin on page 37.
But these are small issues with details that are not the main focus. When it comes to CPC leaders, Shambaugh is master. His book is comprehensive and I learnt so much, especially about Jiang Zemin, who Shambaugh somewhat admires. For a book about the Chinese Communist Party, Shambaugh is not overly vitriolic to the detriment of his scholarship. Many other writers on China could learn from him. I am looking forward to reading more of Shambaugh's work in the future.
August 24, 2022
As a Chinese, I learned quite some new stuff and interesting perspectives about my own leaders from this book. However, the Chinese translations he gives for many technical terms are a total catastrophe (about 30% are wrong in some ways, I wonder why he wouldn't find an editor who knows Chinese to double-check for him). Also, too many personal anecdotes were used that are not exactly strong evidence for his points.
March 20, 2023
MUCH MORE INFO THAN YOUR AVG. BOOK ON CHINA
The book is a must read if you follow China closely for two reasons:
1) it provides a lot of information that other books do not cover. Personal aspects of the leaders and the environment surrounding them that help to explain why and how China and the Chinese State evolved throughout time. It also exposed a wide and complex connection among political figures that makes a lot of sense to why oneself is the leader of China today, why other self was the leader before etc;
2) Narration is good and the way the author connects facts is very elightning. By the end of the book, one can easily understand why China is as it is today.
On the negative side, the book is filled with Western bias, but not discrediting. The bias towards a Western system is clear.
The book is a must read if you follow China closely for two reasons:
1) it provides a lot of information that other books do not cover. Personal aspects of the leaders and the environment surrounding them that help to explain why and how China and the Chinese State evolved throughout time. It also exposed a wide and complex connection among political figures that makes a lot of sense to why oneself is the leader of China today, why other self was the leader before etc;
2) Narration is good and the way the author connects facts is very elightning. By the end of the book, one can easily understand why China is as it is today.
On the negative side, the book is filled with Western bias, but not discrediting. The bias towards a Western system is clear.
February 20, 2022
Not so much boring as just simple. Almost childish in parts. Shambaugh needs to fire his editors because I found so many grammar, spelling typing, etc... errors that were very easy to fix. I'm not saying that mine is perfect, but I'm also not an author. I also think he should maybe invest in a good thesaurus cause the diction in this book, was not it. Lastly, in other books I've read by American authors they're all biased against China obviously but they at least attempt to hide it; Shambaugh did not attempt to hide it. There were so many points in this book also that made me dislike Shambaugh as a person so much because of how he bragged about himself. I know that that's just how a lot of academics are but Jesus it was very very evident in this book.
September 12, 2024
4.5 stars from me. I really enjoyed this survey of the primary leaders of China from Mao to Xi. I gave up on highlighting books to read, because there were too many. If I want a comprehensive list of books to read on China, the Notes from this book would be a good place to start. Things just go out of date so fast. I liked the different ways the author looked at the leaders, from childhood relationships to leadership style. I appreciated the bullet points! Much easier for me to process than endless sentences. Each book I read on China gives me more perspective for the next I read. I am looking forward to the author's memoirs! I will consider other books by this author, so long as they don't seem too academic and detailed in the wrong ways for me.
June 30, 2023
Shambaugh provides a well-balanced biographical account of the upbringing and rule of Mao, Deng, Jiang, Hu, and Xi. He condenses the high points of the longer and more detailed books of the individual rulers to highlight high and lows, and strengths and weaknesses of each ruler. Shambaugh also highlights the human characteristics of each leader, showing how their individual backgrounds, including great hardships and challenges, set them up to rule in certain ways. This book is an excellent introduction or refresher for people interested in China.
August 16, 2025
This book did what it wanted to do. It gave me an overview of the 5 paramount Chinese leaders and even a little bit of hua guofeng. But it dragged at points and spent a little to much on Mao, which for the record all the stuff on Mao was fantastic and well written it’s just that he was given so much more detail than any other leader which in some part was deserved but Xi Jinpings part was so minor it annoyed me. This book is good though and is a good introductory reading and served as a good stepping stone.
September 29, 2022
Very good overview of China's modern leadership, despite the obvious assumption made by the author that Western/American politics/society/economics is superior and to be preferred over any others; the chapter on Xi Jinping, while informative, seemed to suffer the most from this negative bias, even though the author couldn't help but acknowledge Xi's accomplishments at the same time. Overall, worth reading if you are looking for a concise summary of CCP politics.
January 26, 2022
Interesting and nice introduction to the “paramount leaders” of PRC. Many new perspectives and new details about these important individuals were unknown to me.
Would say this is still a very Western liberal minded book. I personally resonate with it, but not too sure whether these would be all sides of the story.
Would say this is still a very Western liberal minded book. I personally resonate with it, but not too sure whether these would be all sides of the story.
January 2, 2025
Good and rather unbiased and rational look at modern China. Bias comes out in full force when Xi Jinping is covered. Per usual the predictions made at or hinted at in the boo haven't come true. It is still a good book for understanding particularly the post-Mao era with the information available and the author gives space to many theories and views.
November 27, 2025
The book provided a very coherent and thorough summary of the five primary leaders of the PCR. The author added his own personal experiences that gave the book an interesting extra layer of intrigue. The only downside is that the language and topics are hefty and complex, requiring the reader to be focused and motivated to finish it.
May 29, 2022
An excellent primer by David Shambaugh!
He masterfully simplifies the totality of PRC leadership without missing the important parts.
I will likely gift this book to those needing a quick understanding of Chinese leadership history and almost certainly reference it again going forward.
He masterfully simplifies the totality of PRC leadership without missing the important parts.
I will likely gift this book to those needing a quick understanding of Chinese leadership history and almost certainly reference it again going forward.
March 17, 2023
Good summary description of the five major Chinese leaders from Mao through to Xi. The focus is clearly on the leaders (as the title indicates). I would have liked to learn more about the developments in the nation, but that was not the point of this book.
June 15, 2024
This is quite an excellent summary of the five previous leaders of China, I would recommend it. My rating is really closer to 4.5, made me want to know a lot more about some of the individuals who were so influential in shaping one of the biggest countries today.
February 23, 2022
informative and eye-opening to the personal backgrounds of each of these leaders. felt a bit too much like an essay/research paper at times.
March 10, 2022
概览，不深入，一般普通
November 22, 2022
Too harsh on China. Okay, it's not America but perhaps it's not all bad.
December 25, 2022
A decent book, though rather one-sided and clearly from the American perspective, though not as bad as others in this respect.
August 6, 2023
China has interesting history! Not sure how up to date it is like with current stuff.
April 17, 2024
Very general, yet basically everything I seek in an introduction to Chinese leaders. Maybe the actual political process and political strategies, in a more in-depth sense, is something I missed.
July 9, 2025
Really enjoyed the book. It gave a good picture of these five Chinese leaders in an entertaining way.
December 4, 2025
A very well-written book. I have never read this engaging history book before. I read it because it was a course book for contemporary Chinese history.
April 23, 2023
解决一些断头书
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews