Title: Unscholarly, retreads same old ground
Review: I had to put this book down after a couple hundred pages. I am not sympathetic to the left in any way, but this book is very weak. There are no footnotes. As another reviewer said, the authors lay into Mao on page one and don't stop. Could your point of view be a little more transparent please?Essentially, they argue that Mao is an opportunistic, incompetent, sadist. He wanted to have power in order to be cruel, but it he came to power despite himself and his bumbling actions.So what is their agenda? What does it prove if Mao was not a true believer, contrary to all the evidence? Would the famines have been better if Mao "really" believed what he said?Don't buy this confused, amateurish pop-history book.
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