Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: El Tejon on December 28, 2005, 03:48:58 AM
-
Just finished Mao: the unknown story by Jung Chang (the author of Wild Swans) and Jon Halliday, and I recommend it to all those interested in totalitarism or China.
It is a year by year biography of Mao's life based on recent PRC revelations via official documents and biographies, and the archives of Communists across Eastern Europe , interviews with persons close to Mao, and the people of the PRC. It is a frightening, yet fascinating, portrait of evil.
Things I found interesting: as tens of millions of Chinese died during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution (as Mao took crops away from the people to trade for technology and arms from USSR), Westerners were praising the moral superiority of socialism and denying any famine. As well, the CIA was reporting that the PRC had socialism all dialed in and squared away. If you do not weep at the destruction and loss of life that the Chinese Communists caused then you are stronger than I am.
The issue of guns is brought up several times. The first priority of the CCP was to ensure a monolopy on firearms wherever they were. The authors state this without comment but it is a great reminder of why governments are solidly pro-gun control.
It is a long book, 635 pages, so get started now.
-
I'm working on Wild Swans now...thanks for the recommendation about the Mao book!
-
It's interesting to read the reviews of the Mao biography on Amazon. Either the Chinese government is making its agents post negative reviews, or this book really annoys some Chinese readers. Personally, I haven't found anything faulty in its scholarship or academic integrity - it's well-researched and thoroughly documented. Sure, it doesn't give the positive side of anything about Mao, but I rather think this is because there isn't a positive side, not because they ignored other evidence! The "positive" Mao biographies tend to have been sponsored by the Chinese government and/or Communist Party, which leads one to suspect their academic integrity rather than Jung Chang's...
-
Remember that a lot of the Chinese international students are *very* thouroughly indoctrinated before they are allowed to leave their country. Sometimes they learn the truth of things while they are studying here, but honestly our academic environment today isnt condusive to dispelling the propaganda of their government.
-
Has there been a dictator in modern times who was at all human, likeable, honorable, honest, civilized, et cetera?
-
Somoaza?
-
Standing Wolf, make no nevermind about the dictators. I don't think there's been a politician with any of those qualities.
-
Maybe Batista as well?