Posted on 01/25/2006 6:20:47 AM PST by Isara
History: The books that a president stacks on his nightstand might seem as mildly prurient as the contents of somebody else's medicine cabinet. But if he's touting a title to another head of state, then we care.
Example: the volume President Bush pressed on Germany's Angela Merkel when she visited the White House two weeks ago. He'd just read "Mao: The Unknown Story," he revealed as the two talked of Merkel's upbringing in then-communist East Germany. Bonding with Merkel, Bush felt the new chancellor would recognize the sordid rise to power of China's late tyrant. She'd appreciate it in a way her socialist predecessor couldn't.
The 814-page volume, written by Jung Chang and husband, Jon Halliday, exposes Mao Zedong's murderous persona in such lifelong detail that it thoroughly undermines the legitimacy of the regime he installed in 1949. Mao's operating principle, they make clear, was unbridled murder.
Beijing has banned the book predictably, ....
A combustible situation, to say the least. Surely Bush knows the delicacy of brandishing such a literary weapon in international company...
The current Bush doesn't stifle the truth, as prodigiously uncovered by Chung, once a member of Mao's fanatical Red Guard, and Halliday, a British historian. On their very first page they record that Mao was responsible for the deaths of more than 70 million countrymen as he consolidated power.
...
The authors blow up fiction after sentimental fiction about Mao's life, among them that he "founded" China's Communist Party as an indigenous movement. Actually the party was a creature of the Soviet Union. Stalin's apparatchiks tolerated Mao's sometime defiance so long as he kept murdering his way to power.
The book not only provides a definitive history, but it also now with Bush's help makes history. Maybe the president should start a book club.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
It was on Drudge the other day, with a photo of the book cover. But as far as TV goes, totally ignored, I suppose.
I have the book, but have not started reading it. Check out comments on Amazon.com. Apparently, many readers really liked the book. There are a few readers that disagreed with some of the facts in the book, but still acknowledged that is a good scholarly effort.
Who exalts the deeds of Chairman Mao? The guy never succeeded in any endeavor. Like many tyrants he was good only at one thing: attaining a position of power. Once imbued with the power he was completely inept. The Great Leap Forward? The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution? Failures on an epic scale. The guy is probably the worst leader in recorded history.
Mao is right up there with Stalin and Hitler.
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