Mao

My Mother’s Secrets

by Helen Zia

She thought she was protecting her children by not telling us her harrowing tale of fleeing China.

Who Killed More: Hitler, Stalin, or Mao?

by Ian Johnson

7 years ago historian Timothy Snyder asked the provocative question: Who killed more, Hitler or Stalin? Maybe he should have included Mao, too.

Historian’s Latest Book on Mao Turns Acclaim in China to Censure

“I wrote this book to expose lies and restore the truth,” Yang Jisheng writes in the book.

History Lesson: Mao Remarks Get Chinese Professor Fired

Shandong Jianzhu University fired Deng Xiangchao for his ‘erroneous remarks’ on Weibo

Remember John Paton Davies Jr., John Stewart Service & John Carter Vincent?

In the US they were scorned in the McCarthy era, but at a China museum they’re lionized.

Covell Meyskens uses his blog to show what life was like under Mao. (Interview)

"We often hear about people’s lives which were destroyed by political oppression, but daily life was more nuanced.” — Historian Covell Meyskens.

The Return of the Cult of Mao

As the anniversary of the June 4, 1989, massacre approaches, China is still trying to come to terms with the contradictory legacies of Mao and Deng.

Stalin 'used secret laboratory to analyse Mao's excrement'

A former Soviet agent says he has found evidence that Joseph Stalin spied on Mao Zedong, among others, by analysing excrement to construct psychological portraits.

Chinese Underwear and Presidential Briefs: What the CIA Told JFK and LBJ About Mao

by Steve Usdin

And the real reason, it seems, that the CIA fought for decades to keep these documents secret.

China must confront and learn from its postwar history

by Jonathan Zimmerman

China focuses on Japan's willful blindness to its WW II history, but China itself ignores its own. 

A city devoted to Maoism - a place where Stalin is revered as a hero of the people

by John Summers

The town tells an alternative story to that of China's breakneck economic growth and rising consumerism, one of nostalgia for those days of Mao suits, Marxism and austerity.

How the west embraced Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book

by John Gray

At the peak of its popularity, Mao's bible was the most printed book in the world. It attained the status of a sacred, holy text during the Cultural Revolution, and retains its place among western devotees.

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: Old Stories from the New China

Jeffrey Wasserstrom teaches at UC Irvine and is the author of "China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know."In July, two stories out of China were big news. One focused on watermelon seller Deng Zhengjia, a poor urban migrant in Hunan province, who became newsworthy only when reports circulated that thuggish chengguan — members of para-police units — allegedly beat him to death. A week later, someone very different, Bo Xilai, was back in the news when he was formally charged with "abuses of power" and corruption. Bo — the former party boss of one of China's biggest cities, Chongqing, a Politburo member and once thought to be bound for elevation to the Communist Party's ruling Standing Committee — was anything but poor, powerless or unknown before cascading scandals brought him down in 2012. Putting the tales of Deng's death and Bo's indictment side by side illuminates a major challenge China's leaders face: How to keep the people believing the stories they tell to justify their rule.