History in the 20th century has traditionally known only two major tyrants. Some may want to call them monsters, because they were responsible for the deaths of millions of people.?The two tyrants were Hitler and Stalin. But a third one can now be added to the infamous list - Mao Tsetung ¡V according to Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, a husband-wife team who have had access to documents about the life of Mao and who have been able to interview those who knew him.?Mao was responsible for the deaths of 34 million Chinese during the Great Leap Forward and the famine that followed. Many millions more died as a result of Mao's Cultural Revolution. The authors argue that Mao's programs caused "well over 70 million deaths in peacetime, more than any other 20th century leader." The author say Mao was "more extreme than Hitler or Stalin" and that he transformed China into a "completely arid society, devoid of civilization, deprived of representation of human feelings, inhabited by a herd with no sensibility, which would automatically obey his orders."

Jung Chang was a little girl living in Sichuan province when Mao Tsetung was rising to the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Mao, his soldiers and supporters undertook the Long March that is a celebrated part of China's communist history. Jung Chang grew up to become a writer, possibly the only writer who can debunk the myth that?Mao was an exemplary leader who possessed all the qualities necessary to lead the Chinese nation. Jung Chang moved to the United Kingdom in 1978, and achieved an academic education that allowed her and husband, well-known British historian Jon Halliday, to write a biography of Mao unlike any other book published on the life of the Chinese dictator. Edgar Snow's Red Star over China set the tone for biographical books on Mao, celebrating him as a heroic national figure. However Jung Chang and Jon Halliday say Mao did not create the Chinese Communist Party in 1920, but that it was the work of Russian officers sent by Stalin to China in 1921. The authors also believe that China during that period was under the strong influence of Russia, and that Russian money helped finance the communist party's activities. They say Russia selected Mao over other Chinese to become a leader not because Mao possessed qualities that made him a leader.The celebrated Long March, which began in 1934, was led by Mao and Red Army followers who later became national heroes because they overcame hunger and hardships during the march, while fighting at the same time Nationalist soldiers.

The authors say some events in the Long March were fabricated. They say Mao failed to make the entire march on foot but was rather carried in a litter. Mao was quoted as saying decades later:"On the march, I was lying in a litter. So what did I do? I read. I read a lot."

The famously reported battle at the Dadu Bridge at Luding during the Long March, which communist forces claimed had been a fierce fight in 1935, was an invention, the authors say.

The authors also say that Zhou Enlai, Mao's loyal prime minister, was an ideal apparatchik because he had discipline and complete obedience to Moscow. But the authors say Mao mistreated Zhou, who had cancer, and forbade him to seek medical treatment and surgery until he died in early 1976. Actually, the authors say Mao wanted Zhou to die first and he got his wish because he followed Zhou in death in September of the same year.

Reviewers of the book, particularly those from The New York Times, say the authors provide an impressive biography, backed solidly with sources and interviews. Jung Chang and Jon Halliday talked to Mao's daughter, Li Na, to one of his mistresses, Zhang Yufeng, and to US presidents who knew Mao, George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford. One of the people interviewed by the authors was Zhang Hanzhi, Mao's English teacher. Nicholas D. Kristof, a correspondent and columnist for The Times says in his review of the book that most of the facts and revelation seem to be backed up. But Kristof says the ambiguities concerning Mao's life have not been cleared up. For many writers, Mao was a bloody ruler who caused the deaths of millions of Chinese people, but he also helped steered China into reform and made the fundamental changes that have contributed to much greater prosperity for China. Chinese women under Mao were emancipated, and land reform was carried out, leading to modernization of the country.