Overview
From 1954 until Mao Zedong's death twenty-two years later, Dr. Li Zhisui was the Chinese ruler's personal physician, which put him in dailyāand increasingly intimateācontact with Mao and his inner circle. in The Private Life of Chairman Mao, Dr. Li vividly reconstructs his extraordinary experience at the center of Mao's decadent imperial court.
Dr. Li clarifies numerous long-standing puzzles, such as the true nature of Mao's feelings toward the United States and the Soviet Union. He describes Mao's deliberate rudeness toward Khrushchev and reveals the actual catalyst of Nixon's historic visit. Here are also surprising details of Mao's personal depravity (we see him dependent on barbiturates and refusing to wash, dress, or brush his teeth) and the sexual politics of his court. To millions of Chinese, Mao was more god than man, but for Dr. Li, he was all too human. Dr. Li's intimate account of this lecherous, paranoid tyrant, callously indifferent to the suffering of his people, will forever alter our view of Chairman Mao and of China under his rule.
Praise for The Private Life of Chairman Mao
āFrom now one no one will be able to pretend to understand Chairman Mao's place in history without reference to this revealing account.āāProfessor Lucian Pye, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
āDr. Li does for Mao what the physician Lord Moran's memoir did for Winston Churchillāturns him into a human being. Here is Mao unveiled: eccentric, demanding, suspicious, unregretful, lascivious, and unfailingly fascinating. Our view of Mao will never be the same again.āāRoss Terrill, author of China in Our Time
āAn extraordinarily intimate portrait of Mao. [Dr. Li] portrays [Mao's imperial court] as a place of boundless decadence, licentiousness, selfishness, relentless toadying and cutthroat political intrigue.āāRichard Bernstein, The New York Times
āOne of the most provocative books on Mao to appear since the publication of Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China.āāPaul G. Pickowicz, The Wall Street Journal
This book title, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, ISBN: 9780679764434, by Li Zhi-Sui, published by Random House Publishing Group (April 2, 1996) is available in paperback. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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