Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (Abridged)

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Summary: A MUST for anyone in China Studies
Review: After digging through numerous academic and fiction textbooks on China, my encounter with Wild Swans has changes my perception of China for ever. Never I read a more compelling and dispassionately written story that is so incredibly unbelievable that you have to read it from the first to the last page without a minute of interruption. This book re-positions any publication about the great Chinese leaders, about Maoism, about propaganda, about Chinese culture and life. This work should be read by anyone interested in China and especially those with inclination towards socialism. Applying a quote from the book "if this (China) is heaven, how does hell look like", now if this is non-fiction, how does fiction look like?

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Summary: A personal history of China through the eyes of a family.
Review: Since I have had very exposure to Chinese history, Jung Chang mesmorized me with her descriptions of the internal struggles of the country as well as her family's attempts to have a "normal" family life while everything around was being turned upside down. I could hardly put the book down as she described trial after trial which have been endured by the Chinese people in the 20th century. This book is a "must read" for anyone interested in learning more about recent history in China or struggles of women everywhere

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Summary: Amazing odyssey
Review: Chang's ambitious memoir takes us through three generations of women in her family: from her grandmother's life as a concubine in 1920s imperialist China, through her mother's role as a Communist organizer, to Chang's own experience as a Red Guard in Mao's brutal Cultural Revolution. The amazing odyssey through the shifting political times of these three strong women reflects the horror endured by the survivors of this complex nation. - Barbara, multiculturalism, http://multicultural.miningco.com

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Summary: Heartbreakingly good
Review: I started reading this book not knowing what to expect. Most of the books about China that I had read were historical and erudite, but they somehow left me more mystified than enlightened about China. Though I am from India and my culture is so different from China's, this one brought the country and its incredible women alive for me like nothing else could have. Weaving the stories of three generations of women who saw the world around them change cataclysmically, the book tells their stories--from the bound feet of the grandmother to the author's own escape to Britain--with a lucid, un-putdownable simplicity and power. I read the book, then my mother did, then my sister. It was a lesson in how much we had in common with these women who led lives so different from ours

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Summary: Don't go the China W/O this book
Review: I made the mistake of stepping into Beijing without first reading this wonderful book. BIG MISTAKE. Because I wasn't in the know, I had no idea that the big portrait of Mao standing above the forbidden city should be looked upon with disdain. And to think that I had a picture taken in front of the thing like thousands of other Chinese (oh the humanity). Wild Swans is filled with insights about China - things you don't learn by just merely going there. For instance, where is all that wonderful Chinese history? Why its been smashed and burned. And who exactly was free from tyrannical reign? The leaders? Yea, right. If you like paranoia, un-righteous dominion, and especially a book you will not only not be able to put down, you wont be able to go without telling everyone you know to read it - then Wild Swans is your book.

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Summary: A story of China on a human level.
Review: Jung Chang makes us hang on every word as she tells how China's policies effected her family. To say this book is well researched and well written is an understatement. It reads like a novel. We're constantly amazed at the attitudes and policies. Like the time Mao wanted everyone to stop what they were doing and make steel. Even if it was in their own kitchens

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Summary: An absolute eye-opener
Review: For a privileged one growing up in peaceful times, I never understood the magnitude or even the implications of the cultural revolution. Reading the book made me more aware of what the opportunity to live means and why this opportunity should be treasured

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Summary: A century of Chinese history as real as your family's story
Review: I'm a voracious reader of non-fiction and "Wild Swans" stopped me dead in my tracks. Jung Chang tells the story of her grandmother, her mother and herself during some of the most tumultious decades in recent Chinese history. Her story is as firmiliar as your own family's story. It is as painful and emotional. Within her story is the story of China seen through the eyes and experiences of three strong women who survive in the face of extraordinary upheaval. Read it

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Summary: A true story you can't put down
Review: This book is one of the best books I've read, if not the best. It is a true story of a families struggle and survival. And it teaches you chinese history better then any history book can. I loved it and it is a most for non-fiction lovers.

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Summary: Transforms historical facts into real life experience.
Review: This book guides you through the life of three incredible women who lived AND survived in China. From one generation to the other life in China changed from black to white. Starting in imperial China, with a grandmother who had her feet bandaged to keep them small and who was forced to become a warrior's concubine, it goes on with the mother who dedicated her life to the construction of communist China and ends up with a grandaughter who was absorbed by the communist system, suffered its brutality and was able to overcome it. The most remarkable feature about this book is the authors ability to show the reader what everyday life in China really meant. The book combines historical facts with personal experience. Although the reader may well be aware of the historical events that occured in China, this book transmits life uncertainty as it is. It is shocking to verify how excess power deviated the search for a better life into the destruction of identity. A great book for anybody willing to feel, rather than understand,China in this century. Mariana Diaz. Mexico City