100 books like The Miracles of Chairman Mao

Don’t be fooled by the title: this is no how-to guide for budding sociopaths who want to force the masses to bend to their every whim. Rather, it is a study of eight dictators with a special emphasis on how each one used his personality cult “to claw his way to power and get rid of his rivals”. Dikotter fits an impressive amount of information into this concise book and does a great job of comparing and contrasting such tyrants as Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Mussolini. But what I especially appreciate are the “deep cuts” — Dikotter includes chapters on dictators you don’t often hear about these days, such the Ethiopian tyrant, Mengistu Haile Mariam and Haiti’s Voodoo-obsessed Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, who declared himself the “personification of God” and liked to strut around in top hat and tails.

If How to be a Dictator gives you an overview of the great tyrants of the 20th century, then Service’s biography of Joseph Stalin provides a close analysis of one of the great monsters of the 20th century. Everybody knows about Hitler’s terrible crimes, but Stalin’s are less familiar, due to a mystifying reluctance on the part of several generations of educators to teach “the youth” about the USSR. What I especially admire about Service’s book is that he really engaged with Stalin’s own writings (which are awful) and so he provides a lot of insight into the ideas that drove this ex-seminarian as he transformed himself into the supreme leader of the largest country in the world. The Stalin that ultimately emerges from this portrait is no raving lunatic but rather a highly intelligent and profoundly evil man who is completely in control of himself. Chilling.

Once a dictator dies, his statues might come down and his books might disappear from school curriculums, but his legacy can endure for generations. Mussolini was the man for whom the term “totalitarian” was coined, and he pioneered many of the techniques of domination that other dictators deployed later in the century. When it was all new, a lot of people thought he might be onto something and “Il Duce” even enjoyed the support of such famous figures such as Churchill and Gandhi. The sight of his bullet ridden corpse strung upside down outside an Esso gas station in Milan must have seemed like the ultimate fall from grace, an indelible image of his regime’s failure. But that was not the end of the story, and in this remarkable book, Luzzato explores what happened next — both to Mussolini’s corpse, and to his ideas, as they continued to linger on… show more.

Oral history as a literary form is relatively new in China. When asked why he wrote the book, Mr. Feng replied that it was because of his guilt as a survivor and as a witness. The Cultural Revolution has devastated and scarred generation after generation in China, yet most people are silent about their personal experiences. Feng conducted numerous interviews with ordinary people who had lived through that period and wrote these intimate stories in the collection. Every voice is different and deeply personal; together, they portray one of the most disturbing and tumultuous times in Chinese history. 

Numerous studies have confirmed that China’s Great Famine was man-made, its architect Mao Zedong. Yet, many of those affected do not blame Mao for what happened to them.

Still, in today’s China, many, including those affected by the catastrophe, worship Mao. The presence of such a ludicrous act is attributed to the communist regime’s mythicizing Mao and meantime censoring any media exposing Mao’s immense cruelties.

This book by Chen helps uncover and make explicit the testimonies of those involved in the human catastrophe. The book also exposes testimonies concerning political violence before and after the famine, which is very beneficial for one to ponder over why political violence and man-made tragedies recur in contemporary China and whether China by itself is capable of ensuring similar tragedies never again occur.

When Chairman Mao initiated the Cultural Revolution in China, Margaret Zhao and her family became enemies of the state. This memoir is full of hope, humor, and love despite the horrific situation of this young girl attempting to survive while many were doing everything to destroy her and her family.

I’m fascinated by how this true story describes the evils of communism in contrast with the opportunities provided by Western Civilization and capitalism. I also find it encouraging that someone could go through such terrible situations, always fearing for the life of herself and her family, and still hold so much optimism that she would one day find her way to America and freedom.

I was fortunate to have met Da Chen when he was keynote speaker for our high school’s annual teen writer’s conference. I had read and recommended to my AP World History students his riveting Colors of the Mountain. 

He was warm with students and staff, regaling my class with stories of life in post-Mao China. Da Chen’s interest in people is evident in his engaging Colors of the Mountain. A tale of triumph against all odds, Da Chen’s memoir chronicles how he and his family survived China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

Despite the harshness of the times, Da Chen tells his story with uncommon grace and humor. I return to his work time and again, not just for preparation in teaching 20th-century China, but also for personal inspiration.

Perspectives on one of the most bewildering and turbulent periods in modern Chinese history – the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution, in the decade from 1966, by one of contemporary China’s foremost historians. Yang, who has worked on the era of the great famines in China prior to this, is well served by two excellent translators. A book that brings the vastness of this revolution down to the stories of specific people and places, including those who were most involved in creating and directing this seminal event.

My future husband and I read excerpts of this book as undergraduates—great preparation for our post-graduation trek into China. We were determined to track down his great-aunt in Chengdu—no mean feat in the late 80s, given the absence of cellphones and internet.

A cover blurb notes this book is in the “tradition of Orwell and Solzhenitsyn” but I’d point instead to Heller (Catch-22) for context on China’s Cultural Revolution. “Chairman Mao is a Rotten Egg,” for example, reveals strategies that made sense when we met my then-fiancé’s great aunt. She shared how her husband was thrown in jail given his training as a doctor, and how she responded to the Red Guards who had come for him: “Good! Take him away,” she feigned bravery, “he’s a pain.” They brought him back two days later.