Was Mao Really a Monster?: The Academic Response to Chang and Halliday’s "Mao: The Unknown Story"

A demystification made by scientists of the lies spread by the propagandists ...

An interestingly schizophrenic book recapitulating the academic response to Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's 2005 biography of Mao. It's important to read as a detailed critique of the Chang/Halliday book, but you certainly come away with the feeling that the reviewers are "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" -- taking issue with specific points in the biography but (generally) passing by the reality that the answer to the book's title is unquestionably and emphatically "yes." That said, some of the essays do provide important analysis of various arguments in the Chang/Halliday book, fleshing out the background and the different elements of the debate about issues that Chang and Halliday address with flat assertions that are far more controversial than Chang and Halliday acknowledge. Worth reading as a companion piece to the bio, so you have a good sense of the evidence around some of the major issues in Mao's life (and, by the way, how solid the case is that he was, in fact, a "monster").