Mao zedong biography jonathan spence

Short, but informative biography of Mao. It's not as detailed as full-fledged biography, but it got all the important things out imo.

I would say there are three big stages of Mao's life, his time as a student/upcoming revolutionary during the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the chaos in China afterwards, his time as a military leader during the Chinese Civil War/WW2 and his time as the leader of Communist China.

Personality-wise, he was bold, committed to his idea of revolution and stubborn.

Mao zedong autobiography

Those traits made him a great military leader during the war but made him a bad peacetime leader. The stories about the buildup to the Great Leap Forward are frustrating and sad; he was constantly warned that the reforms he was proposing would lead to disaster and he responded by lashing out.

He really buried his hand in the sand as he got older, leading to more and more crackpot ideas that no one could criticize without being ruined. His personal life was