Mao Zedong: A Political and Intellectual Portrait [POLITICAL PROFILES]

Revolutionary and ruler, Marxist and nationalist, liberator and despot,
Mao Zedong takes a place among the iconic leaders of the twentieth
century. In this book, Maurice Meisner offers a balanced portrait of the
man who defined modern China. From his role as leader of a communist
revolution in a war-torn and largely rural country to the disasters of
the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the relationship
between Mao's ideas and his political action is highly disputed. With
unparalleled authority, Meisner shows how Mao's unique sinification of
Marxism provides the key to looking at this extraordinary political
career.


The first part of the book is devoted to Mao's revolutionary
leadership before 1949, in particular the influence of the liberal and
anarchist ideas of the May Fourth era, his discovery of Marxism,
Leninism and his conviction that peasants held the potential for
revolution. In the second part, Meisner analyses Mao's early successes
as a nationalist unifier and modernizer, the failure of his socialism
and his eventual transformation into a tyrant.