Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong was born in a small village named Shaosan, (Music Mountain) in Dec. 1893. His family name Mao means, “hair” and his given name Zedong means “Anoint the East.” As a leader, his anointing of the East left an odd birthmark on China’s politics and her people. That mark later transformed into a scar which will never leave Chinas history. Terrill constantly refers to the duplicity that controlled Mao’s personality, the monkey and …

…into the ruler of China. The only area that I wanted more from this biography were the statistics of Mao’s rule, the numbers of victims of his cultural revolution. These programs that Mao inflicted on his people had detrimental effects on the peasants of China but Terrill seems to just float over their consequences. Yet all in all this was a very informative and insightful look into the mind and practices of Mao Zedong.