The Life of Madame Mao eBook Ross Terrill
Download As PDF : The Life of Madame Mao eBook Ross Terrill 
A peculiar facet of China's history is that its greatest villains have often been women. The evil Empress Wu lives on in legend, as does another ogre the "White-Boned Demon," Madame Mao Zedong. On January 25, 1981, Jiang Qing, widow of Mao, was sentenced to death. Two years later, that sentence was changed to life imprisonment.
The daughter of a concubine, Jiang Qing grew up as an outcast in the homes of wealthy men. In her early teens, she joined a troupe of roving actors. By the age of nineteen, she had exhausted two marriages. Reaching Shanghai, she won theatrical success as Ibsen's Nora - a role that gave expression to both her rage and ambition. At twenty-four, Jiang Qing abandoned stardom at the height of a movie career to join Mao Zedong after his Long March across China. She married the great revolutionary, after his current wife was ousted, and rose to be the inspiring and vengeful leader of the Cultural Revolution. As Mao sank toward death, Jiang Qing made her bid to be empress. She failed, and soldiers came to arrest her in the middle of the night. Her downfall reverberated across the world.
Ross Terrill, author of The Life of Mao, one of the West's most eminent Sinologists, is uniquely qualified to unearth Madame Mao's hidden story. Terrill went to China and Taiwan to track down documents and living sources and discovered secret papers and photos that had escaped Madame Mao's confiscation.
In the author's words, "This book tells Jiang Qing’s story through the eloquent, unofficial voices of China oral histories, eyewitness accounts from the grassroots, testimony of those Chinese who watched, knew, hated, or loved Jiang Qing. . . ."
The result is a portrait of a woman, vivid, flawed, and human, who fought her way to a place in history, as well as a riveting view of one of the most momentous revolutions of all time.
The Life of Madame Mao eBook Ross Terrill
I purchased this book on my kindle for a paper I had to write (the physical copy was around $40 on amazon around the time I purchased this). I had first heard of Madame Mao while looking through books by Anchee Min (who wrote "Becoming Madame Mao", a book I recommend for entertainment purposes, not research.)*This part may have some spoilers, I suppose.*
Anyway, I liked how the book had a lot of background on her and went from her birth to her death. All in all, it was an interesting read and at times I really liked her (I felt I could relate to some of her struggles and could understand why her personality became so twisted) mostly when she was young and in the theatre. As the story progressed and she got older, she reminded me of my Korean best friend's crotchety old mother and grandmother, how they were so concerned with family appearances and maintaining household power and being in their husband's constant favor. I didn't like her as she aged and felt that she makes an excellent villain, very dimensional. On one hand she is the product of poverty and cultural problems that fights her way into survival and success, and on the other hand she is obsessed with exacting revenge and gaining the power and respect she was so thoroughly denied in her youth. I feel she was the type of woman who help grudges about everything; and failed to see her own flaws and wrongdoings along the way.
*Spoilers end here*
What I didn't like about the book and author was that it appeared to have a bias view of her. The author does a good job at making the reader feel sympathetic towards her during all stages of her life, when it's generally accepted that she was a bad person who did lots of bad things and in the end paid dearly for her crimes. Although I can see why he might write about her that way; there's a lot to the story we'll never know because she is dead and lots of the things that might tell more of the story are hidden away in China or have been buried with the people who knew. Still, a more indifferent "facts alone" view might've done better for a research paper, but the way the author did this book made it quite a good read for me. I suppose if you pick this up, it'd be best to be a bit open minded. I saw some people very unhappy that it was a more sympathetic book than a condemning one, and it's understandable. If you want to enjoy this book, just don't keep a heavy bias and get upset every time the author tries to pull at your heart strings, there are many times when he is as equally appalled at what she did as most people are.
Overall, I think this story about a major historical villain was enthralling and it's a nice change to read about the life of a person born innocent and slowly became tainted and corrupt over their lifetime until they were able to earn a name like "the white bonded demon" and fall from such a point of power and success to a prisoner in chains and an enemy of all China.
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The Life of Madame Mao eBook Ross Terrill Reviews
I've read quite a lot about Madama Mao and was in China in 1974 and again in 1982. I think this is an accurate accounting of her influence on the arts - which was disastrous.
Provides a very insightful look at the man Mao that seems well balanced and respectful. Yet the author is unafraid to show us the personal flaws of a contradictory and confusing individual who had left his mark on the conscious of the chine people.
Interesting story, lots of details from youth through death. Many Chinese names makes it heavy weather for those not well acquainted with such. All over a good read.
Interesting book. I wish that there had been more written about the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward and the consequences of the Cultural Revolution.
Very interesting reading. Gives a great perspective of what went on in china's rising to a country of dominance and what efforts went into it.
There is a general consensus that Mao Zedong was a political giant of the 20th century. How he got there is intriguing and most unusual. From the start it seems he was born with rebellious tendencies in his blood. Forced to marry in his early teens he abandoned his bride after the wedding ceremony and ran away from home in protest against his people's backward mentality. From this early beginning he had one thing on his mind, he wanted to move his impoverished people, 500 million peasants and all, from poverty to modernity.
Uneducated and penniless he realised he could nor get very far. But, help was just around the corner - in Russia! Impressed by the Russian socialist experiment he started educating himself (and his people) about Marxism, Leninism and socialism, and quickly became convinced it was the social cure for China.
His journey from his muddy, peasant village to his dominance over the Chinese Communist Party 50 years later, was lengthy, tedious and hazardous. His patience, persistence and endurance were in the eyes of his critics, exemplary. Yet it became obvious that enthusiasm alone was not enough. Two of his major undertakings, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, in which he tried to boost his people's economic production and later, cultural education, were total failures and a source of embarrassment. Yet he excelled well in many other endeavours especially politically and militarily as in his great fight against Chiang Kai-Shek.
There is little doubt that Mao brought to his vast country a precious feature unity - unity of language, of culture and of purpose. Starting after the end of the Revolution in 1949 when he became chairman of the CCP, he was like a demigod. He could not be questioned or challenged. In fact he was what historians called a "benevolent dictator". But, in later years, as he grew older and still tried to hold on to his power, he was gradually by passed or ignored on even major policies ("they treat me as if I am a dead ancestor") . Sadly, he even developed some frowned-upon behaviour patterns, in particular a promiscuous attitude toward women. It was not unusual to find him in bed with several women at the same time, a matter which was held against him by his colleagues and critics.
But did Mao raise the living standard of the peasants, as he had hoped to do? When this reviewer went to China on a business trip around the mid 1990s he posed this question to a fellow architect. His answer was "Of course, of course!..." then lowering his voice he confided in me whispering "Some families even have refrigerators in their homes!!"
If Mao excelled politically he did not do well at the family level. If the assumption is correct, that the true nature of a man is in his relations with his wife and children, Mao did not score well in this area. As mentioned above, he ran away from his first bride right after the ceremonies. His second (estranged) wife, the daughter of a professor, was killed by his adversaries while on her way to look for her husband. The third wife, known for her beauty, had some kind of a breakdown when she caught him having an affair with another women and spent the rest of her life in a sanitarium. The last wife, which he kept at a distance, was not allowed to see him without permission from his secretary.
The reader is left with the impression that, to Mao, family life is not important when compared to the bigger task of providing peace and comfort to some 700 million Chinese peasants.
I loved this book! The author writes from a historically well research point of view and frequently reminds the reader of cultural differences. Tis allows the reader to understand from another viewpoint and makes clear his reasoning. It is a long story, but it also a character who lived a very full and long life. Well done!
I purchased this book on my kindle for a paper I had to write (the physical copy was around $40 on around the time I purchased this). I had first heard of Madame Mao while looking through books by Anchee Min (who wrote "Becoming Madame Mao", a book I recommend for entertainment purposes, not research.)
*This part may have some spoilers, I suppose.*
Anyway, I liked how the book had a lot of background on her and went from her birth to her death. All in all, it was an interesting read and at times I really liked her (I felt I could relate to some of her struggles and could understand why her personality became so twisted) mostly when she was young and in the theatre. As the story progressed and she got older, she reminded me of my Korean best friend's crotchety old mother and grandmother, how they were so concerned with family appearances and maintaining household power and being in their husband's constant favor. I didn't like her as she aged and felt that she makes an excellent villain, very dimensional. On one hand she is the product of poverty and cultural problems that fights her way into survival and success, and on the other hand she is obsessed with exacting revenge and gaining the power and respect she was so thoroughly denied in her youth. I feel she was the type of woman who help grudges about everything; and failed to see her own flaws and wrongdoings along the way.
*Spoilers end here*
What I didn't like about the book and author was that it appeared to have a bias view of her. The author does a good job at making the reader feel sympathetic towards her during all stages of her life, when it's generally accepted that she was a bad person who did lots of bad things and in the end paid dearly for her crimes. Although I can see why he might write about her that way; there's a lot to the story we'll never know because she is dead and lots of the things that might tell more of the story are hidden away in China or have been buried with the people who knew. Still, a more indifferent "facts alone" view might've done better for a research paper, but the way the author did this book made it quite a good read for me. I suppose if you pick this up, it'd be best to be a bit open minded. I saw some people very unhappy that it was a more sympathetic book than a condemning one, and it's understandable. If you want to enjoy this book, just don't keep a heavy bias and get upset every time the author tries to pull at your heart strings, there are many times when he is as equally appalled at what she did as most people are.
Overall, I think this story about a major historical villain was enthralling and it's a nice change to read about the life of a person born innocent and slowly became tainted and corrupt over their lifetime until they were able to earn a name like "the white bonded demon" and fall from such a point of power and success to a prisoner in chains and an enemy of all China.
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