Benjamin Britton’s Reviews > Was Mao Really a Monster?: The Academic Response to Chang and Halliday's "Mao: The Unknown Story" > Status Update

"The Cultural Revolution, finally, which the authors rightly call 'the great purge', had nothing to do with renewing an ossified party and everything to do with simple revenge." Arthur Waldron

"The points made in this section are sufficient to refute Jung Chang's likening of Mao to Hitler. In fact, it is easy to find counter-arguments to most, if not all, of Jung Chang's claims throughout the best ok. It simply requires a careful reading and the application of reason." Jin Xiaoding

"Since Mao foresaw the arrival of capitalism, and even anticipated its top campaigner, it seems logical that he would have launched the Cultural Revolution to prevent that happening."

"In fact, this figure is inflated from an initial 0.7 million by Jung Chang's arbitrary multiplication. These 0.7 million deaths, although a big loss of human life, resulted from the final stage of the civil war and the Korean War."."

"Chan, in his coup d'oeil review (in this volume), shows unequivocally that Chang and Halliday's '[n]ew information is manufactured out of a manipulation of facts to such extreme that they can no longer be sustained by empirical evidence', that the co-authors 'prioritize entertainment, sensationalism and titillation over historical accuracy.'" Mobo Gao

"If see Man only as a manipulator, we will not only fail to understand how he conquered a generation of intellectuals; we will also underestimate his talent in making himself the representative of ideology and nationalism."

"A subject as complex as Mao's life and times cannot be treated in stark black and white terms…As for Chang and Halliday, they have created more myths than they debunked."

"It is small comfort that the 'facts ' in the Da Vinci Code are about reliable as those to be found in Mao: The Unknown Story." David S.G. Goodman

"And what about the 'banner-bearer of the Cultural Revolution', Jiang Qing? What of her notorious involvement, first in culture and then in politics during those long years, or that of Lin Biao's wife, Ye Qun? Why, of course, they both got embroiled in venomous power play because they were not getting enough sex!" Geremie R. Barmé