The Private Life of Chairman Mao

Rating:
Summary: All the more horrifying because it is true.
Review: There is really not much I can say about this book other than it is the best. If you are going to read only one book on modern China-- this is the book you must read. But be warned: be prepard to your eyes opened.

Rating:
Summary: a classic
Review: Li's classic account of his life as Mao's personal physician will undoubtedly live. The title is a bit misleading, as this book is not merely aimed to "entertain" us with the shocking details of Mao's private life. Above all it's an autobiography, of a very honest and courageous man (a type that is increasingly rare in China or anywhere else), of his struggle to keep his conscience and humanity alive in perhaps one of the most calamitous periods of human history. Despite a life of suffering, and perhaps because of it, Dr. Li firmly believes that the truth will set us free. Now even today Mao's immense shadow has not dissipated. This book is banned and--paradoxically--bitterly attacked by all the moral cowards the Chinese government can muster. The degree to which a work is attacked and the author is defamed, in a country like China, can only show the greatness of both. History, finally, will reveal reason and truth

Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: What a book! At the same time, both fascinating and horrifying. Mao was undoubtably one of the most cruel, paranoid, hypocritical leaders, not to mention a filthy, disgusting person, ignorant of basic human hygiene and standard medical practices. Dr. Li's description of the complete paranoia and backstabbing between government officials at all levels is very Big Brother-esque. After being at the mercy of such a powerful dictator and his whims all those years, no wonder China is in such a state - poor, low standard of living, terrible living conditions for most of its people, and abominable human rights. How said that one reviewer thinks Dr. Li lied - the Chinese people were subjected to horrible crimes all these years! It's clear whose propaganda you have been reading....

Rating:
Summary: good book.
Review: a very good book

Rating:
Summary: An unprecedented look at power
Review: Unprecedented look at power I cannot imagine a more revealing look at a major world figure than this book. As difficult as it was to keep track of similar (or identical) names, the human beings surrounding Mao come to life in his doctor's report. The doctor remembers incidents in amazing detail--all the more amazing becaue, during the Cultural Revolution, he had to destroy his contemporaneous notes. At the urging of his wife, the doctor reconstructed it all later. After reading the book, I can no longer skip over China news reports in the paper, or read them unfeelingly. The book gives astonishing insight into modern China, and it makes you ask: How can people live under such idiosyncratic leadership? And are the people still living with that type of leadership, without the rest of the world knowing or caring? Debates about human rights in China now have much more meaning.

Rating:
Summary: Why did Dr. Li Zhisui tell a lie???????
Review: This book is not strongly recommanded to other who have interest to know somethings about Chinese history after 1949. In this book, Dr. Li Zhisui had told lot of lies to modify and emphasis the relationship between Chairman Mao and him; however, in last year, a Chinese publishing company had published a book "The True Life of Mao Zedong". This book can figure out many misleading, unture history to readers. This is a good book to make clear about the view of Chairman Mao. However, this book is written in Chinese; if someone have interest to read this book, please contact the publisher to translate to English. The name of Distribution is USA is "Chinese Periodical Distribution,Inc." Tel:[phone] Fax:[phone] I hope you can find an English Version and know the truth!!!

Rating:
Summary: shocking insight into the workings of power
Review: what surprised about this book was the shocking insight into the workings of power. it didn:t have to be china. or did it. having lived and worked in china and now living and working in hongkong, i doubted my views could be so radically challenged. a must read for anyone who thought they no longer had anything to learn about china, the chinese and the organisation of power in such a society. it changed the way i look at the country, something i thought since tiananmen could not happen

Rating:
Summary: The Best biography ever written about a dictator
Review: Dr Li, Mao's personal physician, wrote a fairly enticing and biased biography about one of 20th Century's most fascinating politician or mass murderer. The last of Mao's 20 odd years are mapped out brilliantly in this book, coupled with the doctor's own observations and opinions.

How this book came into print, was short of being a miracle. Never before has someone come so close to keeping a diary and writing every single minute detail of an egomaniac. Even the specifics of his physical and medical condition is being described vividly. (I didn't know Mao had a genital defect, and was impotent, all at once!)

The most tragic part of the book comes in between the chapters describing the disastrous Great Leap Forward, its subsequent famines and it climaxes with the purging of Mao's numerous deputies in the midst of the chaotic Cultural Revolution.

When I first saw this book in the library, I was a little apprehensive initially. But what lured me to it, was the sexual pretense that Mao enjoyed orgies with bevy of beauties. So I picked up the book. Little did I know, I would spend 3 weeks consuming it and I was so mesmerized, I couldn't put it down! Of course, 3 weeks wasn't enough for me to finish the thick tome. So I bought the paperback edition and it was worth every single penny.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent translation
Review: The English translation is excellent. Dialogue is natural and conveys its meaning accurately, and descriptions have a solid literary value of their own.

As someone with only a rudimentary knowledge of Chinese history, I will not delve into the controversies surrounding this book too much. But I see no attempt on Dr. Li's part in "demonizing" Mao, as some reviews on this site have claimed. I think both pro-Mao and anti-Mao camps have used this demonization to promote their views. Mao hoarded his power and had little regard for the lives of the lao bai xing, the masses, but he was not an evil Hitler who set out to destroy them. As Dr. Li painstakingly lays out in his narrative, Mao's personality, motivations, and the politics within and outside of Group One are too complex for anyone to say, "Mao was a demon," or "Mao was a great man."

That said, no matter how pro-Mao you get, there is no ignoring the tens of millions of people that died during the "Three years of Natural Disaster," not to mention the countless, countless lives wronged and destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Those are facts that leave little room for interpretation, unless you deny that they ever happened, like some people do the Holocaust.

The point is, no memoir should be read as a fact-by-fact historical document. Every memoir suffers from the undependability of memory (hence the term "memoir"). But that does not mean there is no truth to be found, and the truth is often too complex to be wrung into one tidy interpretation. Anyone who does that is obviously more concerned with their own agenda than with the quest for truth.

Rating:
Summary: A Personal Look...
Review: i picked this book up while i was in Hong Kong on a holiday. when i bought it, a friend of mine who lives in HK told me not to take it over the border into mainland china, that the book 'is illegal there'.

i always had a fascination of trying to understand modern china, it's meeting of 'old and new'...and in my search for this, i learned that in order to understand 'modern china' you have to understand a man named Mao Zedong.

this book took a lot of courage for Dr. Li to write...for those of you who haven't read it. it's bascially a compilation of a personal journal written by Dr. Li, who was Mao's personal physician from the beginning of the People's Republic of China until his death. as if it wasn't dangerous enough for him to keep a personal diary that critisized communist party leaders, which could get you arrested or shot....he actually wrote a book about his experiences.

Dr. Li gave me a perspective of Mao that no one else could know except for the inner circle of Mao's closet friends. the book is long, but very easy to read because it is all in the first person...
"i saw mao do this...."
"this person said this to me...."

when i finished reading the book, i felt like i really knew what Mao's personality was really like. not only did i learn of Mao's personality, but also of the top party elite. Important people such as Deng Xiaopeng, Dong Wangxing, and Zhou Enlai...who also had a BIG hand in the shaping of how china is run today.

Dr. Li gives firsthand accounts of what was really happening in the core of the chinese communist party during events such as May Day, and the infamous "Lin Baio Incident" or better known as the "gang of four rebellion".
the book is also very enlightening on the outside influences that had a hand in inside political struggles around mao's aides such as Mao's wife as well as personal observations on Mao's many mistresses.

this book is excellent for anyone with an interest in learning how modern chinese communist party politics were played out in the crucial moments of Mao Zedong's rule.

i highly recommend this book

J.