Jon Halliday (Irish historian) Add a review

Jon Halliday (born 28 June 1939) is an Irish historian specialising in modern Asia. He was formerly a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London. He was educated at University of Oxford and has been married to Jung Chang since 1991. Halliday is the older brother of the late Irish International relations academic and writer Fred Halliday.

Halliday has written or edited eight books, including a long interview with the U.S. film-maker Douglas Sirk. In addition, he and his wife, Jung Chang, with whom he lives in Notting Hill, West London, researched and wrote a biography of Mao Zedong, Mao: the Unknown Story. The book was highly praised in the popular press, and also elicited some controversy. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that while few commentators disputed it, "some of the world's most eminent scholars of modern Chinese history" had referred to the book as "a gross distortion of the records." Some scholars offered measured praise of the range of scholarship, but more prevalent criticism on factual accuracy, methodology, and use of sources. Historian Rebecca Karl summarized its negative reception, writing, "According to many reviewers of Mao: the Unknown Story, the story told therein is unknown because Chang and Halliday substantially fabricated it or exaggerated it into existence."