Ross Terrill (1938–2024)

This is a surprisingly good book. Jiang Qing was an ambitious but not entirely successful actress prior to marrying Mao Tse-Tung in 1938. Thirty years later she burst back into the public limelight on the wave of Red Guard agitation, wreaking revenge on her rivals and critics from the 1930's, and anyone else who stood in her way. Eventually brought to heel (she one described herself as Mao's attack dog) following Mao's death, she was tried and sentenced to death. Oddly enough this is at the show more one time both a very scholarly and hugely gossipy biography. It is hard to reconcile the latter with the former, unless the reader appreciates that Terrill had access to a substantial archive of Chinese theatrical and cinema 'gossip' magazines from the 1930's which featured Jiang Qing - not entirely sympathetically. Furthermore, Terrill managed to interview some of those who knew her in her pre-Mao days, and others delivered extensive testimony during her trial. This does make for a remarkably colorful biography, and if Terrill lapses into reveries about what was going on inside her head or reports occasionally on which direction she cast her gaze, he might defend himself by saying it makes his subject come alive - and he'd be right. The issue of Jiang Qing is still a difficult one within China. From a Western perspective it is hard to remove the layers of excrement that were flung at her at the end, or penetrate the rewriting of history by Jiang and the Chinese Communist Party that occurred over the last eighty years. Whether her ambitions were for China, or Mao, or for herself is not clear. What is clear is that her fall was inevitable. Arrayed against her was outraged male power, the proponents of a market economy against her notion of dictatorship, and the tide of opinion disgusted with her campaign of personal vengeance against so many people. No reader of Chinese twentieth century history should miss this biography. show less

Fascinating book by Terrill, one of the great writers on Chinese subjects, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre. He reassesses his ongoing infatuation with China and some of his earlier judgments. It is refreshing to see a writer put himself through this type of examination in public and he earns our deep respect by fessing up to some instances of shortsightedness. When you add the fact that Terrill writes really really well, this is essential reading for anyone who had read his show more earlier books (e.g., his biographies of Mao and Madame Mao.) show less

Well written, with a unique and sometimes enigmatic main character. Exposes the chaotic atmosphere of the Mao era.

I decided to read a biography of Mao after seeing "Nixon in China," the opera by John Adams, in a live-at-the-met" production a couple of months ago. Seeing the opera made me realize how little I knew about Mao, although I'd taken two terms of Chinese/Japanese history in college in the mid-60s. (Those covered mostly the ancient cultural history and certainly didn't go beyond mid-19th century at all.) Reviews led me to this revised 1999 edition of Terrill's biography.I was somewhat alarmed by show more what seemed to me a tendency to uncritical acceptance of Mao's own recollections of his childhood and early youth, but I suppose that that's almost inevitable when dealing with the very early life of someone completely unknown and insignificant at that stage of life. Documentation, naturally enough, steadily improves as the book goes along.I do think it's well-written and I found it kept my interest keen after the childhood section. I haven't read enough about Mao and modern Chinese history to judge how accurate it is, but it certainly has been praised by those who know more. And it's heightened my interest sufficiently so that I expect to read more about the history of the era and today's China as well. show less