I'm reading a biography of Mao Tse-Tung from 2005 and it is fascinating and the authors have an extensive bibliography from Chinese, English and Russian sources but I'm just wondering if anyone can tell me how accurate this book is? I know that to some extent, Mao's cult of personality still exists in modern China, the covering up of his extensive crimes against humanity but this book swings HARD in the other direction to the point where sometimes it paints him as almost cartoonishly villainous. So how accurate is this book?
The academic response to it has not been especially kind, so much so that there is an entire book, Was Mao Really a Monster: The Academic Response to Chang and Halliday "Mao: The Unknown Story, devoted to pointing out the flaws and shortcomings of the Chang and Halliday text. Was Mao Really a Monster? is an anthology with multiple China specialists contributing to it. These academics take issue with the faulty research methods of Chang and Halliday which employed a highly selective use of primary sources, their inability to contextualize Chinese history, and the persistent attempts to ascribe Mao's actions to his own monstrous personality. Although some of the historians within the anthology found nuggets of accuracy (especially the assertion that Mao at the acme of his power could be quite capricious) within Chang and Halliday, the shrillness and accusatory tone towards Mao generates more heat than light.