This book presents the dramatic life of Mao Zedong, revealing a wealth of unheard-of facts: why Mao joined the Communist Party, how he came to sit at the top of the Chinese Communist Party, and how he seized China step by step. Writers Jung Chang and her husband Jon Halliday took ten years to complete this book, interviewing hundreds of Mao's relatives and friends, Chinese and foreign informants and witnesses who worked and interacted with Mao as well as dignitaries from various countries.
Purchase link:https://www.amazon.com/Mao-Story-Jung-Chang/dp/0679746323.
This volume is authored by Bu Weihua. Bu Weihua was the originator of the Red Guards and the Red Guard movement. He became a member of the Red Guards at Tsinghua High School. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, he received professional training in history and was one of the first scholars in China to engage in the study of the Cultural Revolution. He not only understands the pre-Cultural Revolution period, especially the Red Guard movement in Beijing, but also has deep reflections on the catastrophe he experienced. This volume concisely depicts the panoramic images and processes of the Cultural Revolution from May 1966 to April 1969.
The author of this book, Wang Nianyi (1932 - September 13, 2007), was an expert on the history of the Cultural Revolution. He has a clear understanding of the causes and circumstances of the Cultural Revolution. He is regarded as doing "pioneering work" in China's domestic study of the Cultural Revolution. According to Qizhi's recollection, Wang Nianyi compiled <i>Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution</i>, <i>The First Year of the Cultural Revolution</i>, <i>Dictionary of the Cultural Revolution</i>, <i>Miscellaneous Discourses on the Cultural Revolution</i>, and <i>Research Materials on the Cultural Revolution</i>, which have not been published in China.
Wang Nianyi is an expert on the history of the Cultural Revolution in China. Early on, he suggested that Lin Biao's defection was forced by Mao Zedong. This has long been considered a taboo view in China.