Books | The Clever Shark

Currently reading…

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 05:35:46 +0000

Mao’s Last Revolution by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals. An extremely interesting book that focuses on Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976.

Currently reading…

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 02:10:43 +0000

The Private Life of Chairman Mao By Dr. Li Zhisui, who was the Chairman’s personal doctor from 1954 all the way to his death in 1976. A fascinating insider’s view into the Mao the man and into the politics that ruled China during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Currently reading…

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:01:47 +0000

Back from the Brink, a political memoir by Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling. It’s a bit of a break from reading about events in which millions perish and millions more are horribly tortured…

Currently reading…

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:27:15 +0000

Survival in the Killing Fields by Haing Ngor, whom some of you may remember as the actor who played journalist Dith Pran in The Killing Fields. A vivid first-person account of what it was like to live in Cambodia before and during the infamous era of the Khmer Rouge, during which some 25% of the country’s population was killed.

Currently reading…

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:16:57 +0000

Mao’s Great Famine by Frank Dikotter. This is not the first time I’ve read about the effects of China’s Great Leap Forward in the late 50s and early 60s, but this certainly has highlighted not only the direct effects of the famine itself but also its origins and also the secondary effects by which the GLF had such a devastating impact on the Chinese countryside.