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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...

The real Mao Lorne Gunter National Post Monday, October 24, 2005 A new biography of Mao Tse-Tung is forcing the Chinese to re-examine their views of the Great Helmsman. The book appears to be causing at least as much ideological dyspepsia among Mao's Western admirers, of whom there are still many. Mao: The Unknown Story, by the wife-and-husband team of Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, demonstrates convincingly that the founding dictator of communist China was a thug, not a secular saint. He was always as willing to kill his rivals and supporters as his opponents, always bourgeois, arrogant and...

"The biggest Asian tiger!" "The new century's economic miracle!" "The next global superpower!" These are some of the clichés used to describe the People's Republic of China which, its Communist political structures notwithstanding, has experienced remarkable economic growth during the past four or five years. In a short time the People's Republic has emerged as the world's second largest importer of crude oil, just behind the United States, the biggest global exporter of textiles, and the world's largest manufacturer of a wide-range of cheap consumer goods. According to some estimates, China, whose population will reach a staggering 1.5 billion people...