The subtitle of this new biography of Mao Zedong, the long-time leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), by Alexander Pantsov and Steven Levine—“the real story”—implicitly challenges an earlier biography by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (New York: Knopf, 2005). Chang and Halliday met with criticism in some scholarly circles for making far-fetched claims about Mao—in effect, for demonizing him. Pantsov and Levine, by contrast, are clear from the start that, in their eyes, “Mao was neither a saint not a demon, but rather a complicated figure” (pp. 5–6). This “balanced” assessment of Mao highlights his achievements of having unified China and having liberated it from the shackles of imperialism (the authors’ terms) while criticizing his “criminal” behavior in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The authors discuss Mao's cunning and his political talents in the struggle for power, but they also emphasize his...

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