Posted on 01/22/2006 6:37:53 PM PST by Jenny Hatch
When President George W. Bush met with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in the Oval Office this month, the talk turned to Merkel's childhood under Communism, then wandered into the subject of Bush's latest bedtime reading: "Mao: The Unknown Story," an 814-page biography that presents the Chinese dictator as another Hitler or Stalin.
Participants in the meeting say that Bush spoke glowingly of the book, a 10-year project by Jung Chang, the author of the hugely successful memoir "Wild Swans," which has sold 10 million copies worldwide, and her husband, John Halliday, a British historian. "Mao" has been at the top of the best-seller lists in Britain and Germany and was published to mixed reviews late last year in the United States.
The book might at first seem an odd choice for Bush, whose taste in biography, like that of other U.S. presidents, runs to previous occupants of the Oval Office. But it is not so surprising given that "Mao: The Unknown Story" has been embraced by the right as a searing indictment of Communism.
Other reviewers have praised the book's brutal portrait of Mao as a corrective to sunnier biographies
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Jenny Hatch
...was so pleased to see that President Bush has also read it!
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Well, he just wanted to get a good calibration of the far left Dems and Hitlery...
Sounds like a fascinating read. I agree with the premise, too. Mao was every bit as brutal as Stalin or Hitler.
And that sometimes if you want an omlette, you have to kill 70 million people.
Liberals are the only people I know who can decry the few thousand deaths caused by liberating Iraq while downplaying the 100+ million dead caused by communism in the last century.
Mao ruined his economy by his relentless pursuit of a nuclear bomb, which surprisingly enough, he did obtain and test. He never was able to develop the ability to deliver it, especially after the Russians cut ties. I actually came to respect certain Russian leaders, not Stalin, after I read this book. They knew he was a raving lunatic, and actually made fun of him.
Jenny
I read the book in a week, could not put it down. But I had the same experience with Changs Wild Swans when I read it four years ago. She is an excellent writer.
Jenny
""Mao: The Unknown Story," an 814-page biography that presents the Chinese dictator as another Hitler or Stalin."
She writes in a manner that suggests this view is in doubt.
It shouldn't be. Mao killed more humans than any other dictator on earth.
You know? After reading this book, we have to change that 100 million number. With Stalins 70 million and Mao's 70 million, plus all the petty tyrants - Castro, Hussein, etc... the number may be well over 200 million.
I loved how the author ended the piece with a quote from Marxist Doris Kearns Goodwin. Also dismissive, and likening Bush's reading with a " good escapist play" ala President Lincoln.
This book is so damning to the whole communist cause, after I read it, I just wanted to scream from the housetops, EVERYONE HAS TO READ THIS BOOK!!!
I pray that the president reading it has a ripple effect. Nobody much cares if a sleep deprived mom in Colorado reads an anti-commie book.
Jenny
If you've ever seen the video of China's first nuclear test, you'd realize that the Chinese under Mao were crazy. Right after detonation, they send hundreds of troops to run through the blast zone as if they were attacking an enemy. Most run along with AK's blasting away while others are on horse back, with the horses wearing protective gear, while the rider attacks an imaginary enemy with a sword.
Question.
Is there any leader, at any time in history, who can claim more deaths then this?
Depends on how one defines "responsible".
peculiar headline
They knew he was a raving lunatic, and actually made fun of him.
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Yes, as most communist dictators are...just look around.
Well, Super-traitor Billy Jeff Clinton solved that problem for them.
Shhhhh! W wants to maintain his illiterate image, and this post is blowing his cover. He doesn't want the world to know he's read thousands of books, including a vast number of biographies. Why, I don't know, but apparently it works for him.
Good for you, I've been working on it for a while. The substance is good, but the style hasn't gotten me hooked. I've got a long plane flight ahead of me and hope to make more headway then.
If you liked this subject you may enjoy Gulag by Anne Applebaum and The Black Book of Communism. Black Book is very text bookish, but the data is awesome. Gulag is a much easier read and the stories of what happened to the children are devastating.
Nope.
Even Stalin and Hirohito pale to Mao.
Genghis Khan simply didn't have the man-power. Though he WAS particulaly nasty because after he pillaged, raped, burned and murdered a village, he would wait three days and then RETURN to finish off those who had hidden, escaped or run away. Now that was an extra bit of nasty evil.
Do these three qualify as "holocausts"? I doubt it.
They are, after all, just Chinese and Russians who were murdered, imprisoned, tortured, raped, etc.
There won't be THOUSANDS of Sleazywood movies about them, either, no T.V. serials a la Hogan's Heroes ridiculing and debasing the Chinese, Japanese or Russian cultures, militaries and people who did this, no libraries full of books about the brutality of Stalin, Hirohito or Mao....and their "order-obeyers."
Those three men didn't do it alone either. THEIR political henchmen and henchwomen were also "just obeying orders," as were the millions of men and women in THEIR comprehensive militaries.
And you can bet your bottom dollar, Mark, Yen, Sen and Ruble that there will be no reparations paid out. There'll be no "hate-crime" attached to THOSE deaths.
I remember, not too long ago, when 800,000 Tsutsis and Watutsis were murdered in Rawanda one year.....not a blip in the world media. THAT qualified as a holocaust too, imho. There HAS been ONE movie about it, though, which is amazing.
Why hasn't Gerarldo Bizarro been doing the OCEANS of specials about THOSE particular "events"? Perhaps the Russians, Chinese and Japanese won't let him in their countries.
But the world was FIXATED on one Natalee Holloway...and her pitiful, sad, still-unsolved drunken, Aruban death.
We certainly put more value on some lives than we do on others. We sure blame and hold some people more responsible than others.
Very strange.
If a person supports communism, then they need to read this book. They won't be supporting it by the time they're finished with it.
Don't forget the Japanese, who didn't have the "commie" excuse.
Hirohito and his Imperial military invaded China in 1932 and occupied China for 13 long years.
Thirty-four million Chinese were murdered in that time. At least, that's what the Chinese said. They would know too, since they have been avid census takers since before anno dominum. And please don't forget the Japanese tortures, medical experiments, prisons, death camps, rapes, mass graves, ripping apart of children -- the theft of an entire generation of Chinese.
The Japanese got a total pass on their holocaustal genocide of the Chinese.
Hirohito was RIGHT UP THERE with Stalin and Mao.
Oh, I forgot.....they weren't German.
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