[.ca] Madame Mao: The White Boned Demon (ISBN 0804729220)

a very timely read - recommended to everyone:
This book is a laborous attempt to highlight a huge danger of a society reliant on both totalitarian tenets and on a Tzar-like charisma of a single human leader. With no democracy nor a modern social system based on rule of law and free flow of information, PRC China as of today faces the same - or even grander - catastrophic risk of implosion as depicted in the book. Especially so given China's growing presence and power militarily, politically and economically.

An Important Look Madame Mao:
This book was totally engrossing. Having read many previous historical accounts of the last 5 decades of Chinese History, I never fully understood the role of Jiang Qing. Always, in other books, her one and only epithet would be something like, "an ambitious actress from Shanghai..." That would be fine to describe a lesser figure in the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, but I always felt it completely inadequate when discussing THE instigator of said turmoil. This book helps to elucidate the woman who caused so much of the havoc that took China to the brink of destruction for so long a time. This book shows the young Qing as, indeed, the ambitious Shanghai actress, and the drama that would resurface 30 years later, with her in power over her numerous enemies. Also, the book is not singularly concentrated on Qing; rather, it shows the complex, at times Kafakaesque intrigues of the Communist system under Mao. Of how good friends and mentors, Zhou Enlai for example, who tried to keep a hospital-bound Qing in high spirits when even Mao himself did not (or did not care), later became bitter enemies, and the back-stabbing necessary to retain power (or stay alive) in Mao-era China. Very interesting work, completely readable. The only gripes I have with this book is that I have read several of the books Terrill uses as his sources, and I noticed on several occasions that he includes, verbatim, what others already wrote. He does give credit sometimes, though. Also, I found his extensive use of footnotes-cum-elaboration to be quite cumbersome, and wish he had just put the extra detail into the body itself, and not at the bottom of the page--it just throws off your reading and got aggrivating at points. However, these are minor points; the book itself is quite excellent, and I would highly recommend it for those wishing to get another angle on the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution.