Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday

I started Mao: The Unknown Story somewhat serendipitously.  I went to the local library non-fiction audiobook section looking at biographies. I had eyed this Mao book several times, but it was an imposing 25 disc set. This book would likely take over a month of time to consume in the car on my commute. But I finished up with a book and needed something, so I checked it out, and started to listen.

The first problem had nothing to do with the book. Since I first fell in love with reading (during my seventh grade reading class), I realized I had a problem with remembering character names. Like many people, I struggle to remember someone's name when I first meet them. I have gotten better with practice and  conscious effort. I have always struggled with the same problem in books. I just don't remember the character's names. I have had to take notes sometimes to keep things straight. When I consumed The Brothers Karamazov, I had to constantly reread parts because I didn't know which character was being referenced.

Virtually all of the names in Mao were Asian or Russian, and I was consuming this book in audio format. It was extremely difficult to track who was who. Again, this is my problem, but even if the other problems I will describe below didn't exist with the book, I would have to finish it in paper format because it was just too difficult to track in audio format.

The other problems: I believe people are fundamentally good. I think people fundamentally think they are the good guy. Even if they are the bad guy, I think they think they are doing bad things, but that they are not the bad guy. Mao Tse-tung, according to this book was evil from birth, and the entire book is written from that premise.

I think we already know that Mao did some pretty horrible things, and the book does an excellent job of describing just how horrible he really was. But there was balance to part of the book that I consumed (approximately half of the book). Everything that he ever did was attributed to some evil, power-hungry motive. Again, I realize my outlook on life influences my opinion of this book, but it is difficult for me to read a non-fiction book about a person who has about as much depth as a James Bond villain.

Had the book been shorter, I probably would have just finished consuming it. One of the things I love about reading is being able to understand people. But this book didn't give me any understanding of Mao, it simply told me he was evil through and through.

You can purchase this book from Amazon.com here:Mao: The Unknown Story