4 ms·
Mao leveraged the movement to try and get himself back in the driver's seat, after he had been sidelined following the Great Leap Forward. He amplified them gr
by free_rms 6y ago
Mao leveraged the movement to try and get himself back in the driver's seat, after he had been sidelined following the Great Leap Forward. He amplified them greatly for his own selfish reasons, which is also happening in our current moment, in different ways. They wound up being, surprise, unpredictable and destructive.
(A note, I read that book too, it's good but needs discounting for bias. Anybody who writes Beijing as 'Peking', or Zhou Enlai as "Chou En-lai" in the 21st century has clearly got a KMT-flavored axe to grind. But it also has some great original research.)
- BurningFrog 6y agoYeah, the anti Mao sentiment is very clear. This is not just a factual historical account. It also takes a lot of opportunities to point out how awful a person Mao was, and makes claims about his motives, which don't always seem knowable. Of course, when writing about one of the worst rulers in human history, being a bit judgemental is understandable. But it does make me want to check other sources. On the fact level, there seems to be an enormous amount of work behind the book.