Mao: The Unknown Story Add a review

Mao: The Unknown Story is a revisionist 2005 biography of the Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong (1893–1976) that was written by the husband-and-wife team of the writer Jung Chang and the historian Jon Halliday, who detail Mao's early life, his introduction to the Chinese Communist Party, and his political career. The book summarizes Mao's transition from a rebel against the autocratic Kuomintang government to the totalitarian dictator over the People's Republic of China. Chang and Halliday heavily cover Mao's role in the planning and the execution of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. They open the book by calling him "Mao Tse-tung" instead of "Mao Zedong", which is the Wade-Giles romanization spelling of his name, while "Mao Zedong" is the modern, official Hanyu Pinyin spelling.

In conducting their research for the book over the course of a decade, the authors interviewed hundreds of people who were close to Mao at some point in his life, used recently-published memoirs from Chinese political figures, and explored newly-opened archives in China and Russia. Chang had herself lived through the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, which she described in her earlier book Wild Swans (1991).

The book quickly became a best-seller in Europe and North America. It received mostly critical or mixed from academics. Reviews from many China specialists were critical and cite inaccuracies and selectivity in the use of sources and the polemical portrayal of Mao. Some academics were more favorable, as was the popular press.