Rating: 
Summary: Lacked focus on importance
Review: If you going to attempt a 180 page biography of someone of this stature, one must sift thru and present only the most relevent and important details. This did not happen. A decent book, but lacked details on some very important areas, while giving too much time to unrealted topics. Example: Mao becomes the head of a small, isolated band of communist guerilla fighters. Very well, now how does he transform from that, into the head of state for a billion people? the book doesnt say. In this biogarphy, Mao goes from that cave-living nobody into meeting Stalin and ruling China in about 2 paragraphs. From cave-dweller to world leader in 6 sentences. We get more than 6 sentences about his last secretary's personal life.
Rating: 
Summary: Biography on a madman...
Review: If you want a detailed account of Mao's life, then you should find a big fat book on him. This is a short book that is in no way a complete biography, but serves as a great introduction to Mao and the state of China throughout his life. Given the space of 178 pages, Jonathan Spence selectively designs a narrative that emphasizes the influences that shaped Mao's early life. Less insightful than informative, Spence's book is one you can learn from if communism in China arouses your curiousity. And you can read it in a day.
Rating: 
Summary: Brief story of Mao
Review: If you want a detailed account of Mao's life, then you should find a big fat book on him. This is a short book that is in no way a complete biography, but serves as a great introduction to Mao and the state of China throughout his life. Given the space of 178 pages, Jonathan Spence selectively designs a narrative that emphasizes the influences that shaped Mao's early life. Less insightful than informative, Spence's book is one you can learn from if communism in China arouses your curiousity. And you can read it in a day.
Rating:
Summary: Biography on a madman...
Review: In the latest of the concise Penguin Lives series, China historian Spence (The Gate of Heavenly Peace, etc.) blends historical facts with cultural analysis, creating a work that is fluid and informative despite its brevity. Portraying an intimate Mao (1893-1976), Spence leaves much of the political commentary to other historians, focusing instead on how a boy from the farm villages of Hunan rose to rule the most populous nation in the world. Spence gives readers a Mao who is smart but not wise, unexceptional in almost all qualities except his "inflexible will" and "ruthless self-confidence." He points out that, even at a young age, Mao's perception of governing foreshadowed much of how he eventually did rule: in an essay written about Lord Shang, a Qin dynasty minister, Mao argued that Shang's rule, considered by historians to be cruel, was just ("At the beginning of anything out of the ordinary, the mass of the people always dislike it"). "I have come," writes Spence, "to think of the enigmatic arena in which Mao seemed most at home as being that of order's opposite, the world of misrule." The shortness of the form enablesÄor requiresÄSpence to accelerate the pace of Mao's life, thus adding drama to the sea change in Mao's character from na‹ve idealist to cunning political infighter and center of a personality cult. The Mao who lingers on the last page is a somewhat diminished, Lear-like figure, estranged from his wife and ultimately unsure of whether his revolution had a future. When Henry Kissinger praised Mao's writings during their famous meeting, the chairman responded: "I think that, generally, people like me sound like a lot of big canons."
Rating:
Summary: Two Hours After Finishing This Book...
Review: Jonathan Spence is as knowledgeable a writer and scholar of modern China as one can find. Like all bios in the Penguin Lives series this one of Mao is short and hits but the highlights of this history-changing leader's life. Spence presents the highlights of Mao's life: his rural background, the long struggle to find a place and a way to oppose the old regime, the many wives and children, the incredibly difficult opposition to the Japanese and the Nationalists during WWII and the long, rather disastrous reign as China's leader. But we are given--of necessity--just a taste of a life. Spence is a biographer and a historian, not a poet. And perhaps a poet is needed here. For me, this was a good, solid introduction to Mao. What I need is a fuller, more fleshed out biography wherein the subject comes to life, where his life feels real and one can really get inside his head to try and understand what made this marvelous, monstrous man tick. But, this is a good first taste.
Rating:
Summary: Informative and concise, but unsatisfying
Review: Jonathan Spence's biography of Mao was my first experience with the new Penguin Lives series, and I was unsure what to expect. Certainly, one cannot expect too much from a biography of one of the major political figures of the 20th century that offers only 178 pages of text and 10 pages of endnotes. But I was game to try it, since I knew very little about Mao and gathered I would learn a lot in a relatively short time from this biography. Spence certainly succeeds in compressing most of the major events of Mao's life into this thin volume, and concisely reviews much of Mao's political thought and how it evolved. He also does a good job of mining source materials, particularly some of Mao's more obscure writing and poetry. But my major frustration in reading this book was a feeling that I never learned much about Mao as an individual human being, except that he came from obscure bourgeois peasant roots, that he was "married" at least four times and had at least ten children with whom he had rather distant relationships, and that as the years passed, he became more and more of a megalomaniac. I would also fault the book for giving minimal attention to the history of the times and to Mao's principal comrades in arms. (For example, Zhou Enlai does not appear until the final quarter of the book and gets minimal mention at that. The Long March gets only 2-3 pages.) Also somehwat curious is that the book lacks an index. All of that said, however, this is a remarkably informative book given its length. I should emphasize that the text on each page measures lightly under 6 x 4 inches, too--so not only is it a short book, but also a small book. I put the book down eager to learn more about Mao, which I suppose does commend it to other readers who know as little as I did before I read it.
Rating:
Summary: Mao Zedong
Review: Jonathan Spence's MAO feels like it's one of his three hour lectures on Chinese history. It's so incredibly even that it's bland. Spence presents each detail of Mao's life with the same monotnous detail (or lack of) that you can't seem to seperate what's big and what's not. It's as if the author doesn't have an identity, he takes an incredibly unstable life and packages it with a very matter-of-fact attitude. When the events of Mao's life reach a peak, the writing doesn't. It's emotionless, but not boring. It's a quick read, and it may very well peak an interest, but how slight or large is probably a measure of the style you feel most comfortable with. The PENGUIN LIVES series is like an extended Strathern 90 Minutes course: they're too short and pretty for you to avoid for long, and I suppose it's probably good to prescribe to the philosophy that it was worth reading if you learned something.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect intoduction for the curious
Review: Only about two hundred pages, Jonathan Spence does a very noble job summarizing one of the most powerful, mysterious, fascinating, and frightening persons of the twentieth century. Though if one is looking for a book that goes into detail about any aspect of Mao's life or policies, it is best to look elsewhere. This book is a straightforward and unabashed introduction and quick overview of Mao's life and work and ideas. Perfect for people curious about Mao and twentieth century China who want to read more than an abstract, but do not necessarily need or want to tackle a big and detailed work. Just the facts and little commentary. Spence does a good job balancing any bias against or for Mao and his policies and deals mostly with the reasons for them and overall consequences.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect intoduction for the curious
Review: Only about two hundred pages, Jonathan Spence does a very noble job summarizing one of the most powerful, mysterious, fascinating, and frightening persons of the twentieth century. Though if one is looking for a book that goes into detail about any aspect of Mao's life or policies, it is best to look elsewhere. This book is a straightforward and unabashed introduction and quick overview of Mao's life and work and ideas. Perfect for people curious about Mao and twentieth century China who want to read more than an abstract, but do not necessarily need or want to tackle a big and detailed work. Just the facts and little commentary. Spence does a good job balancing any bias against or for Mao and his policies and deals mostly with the reasons for them and overall consequences.
Rating:
Summary: A sharply focused biography.
Review: Spence's biography of Mao, while not satisfying to most of the other Amazon reviewers, is a fairly good portrait of the man. If you are looking for the whole sweep of Chinese history in the twentieth century, then this is the wrong book. If you are interested in Mao the person, this book is a fine beginning point. Obviously, the Penguin biographies are short reads, so Spence has focused his writing sharply on Mao himself which causes him to leave out most of the context. Contrary to one of the other reviews, Spence's picture of Mao is not updated propaganda but, rather, punctures the penumbra surrounding Mao to show what seems to be a somewhat demented individual in his years of power. I came away from the book with a new understanding of how little the epithet "helmsman" fits Mao--THAT is all propaganda. Much like Stalin, Mao was able to maneuver himself into power over and above smarter and more talented individuals. The results for China were disastrous.
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