Mao: The Unknown Story Add a review

Mao: The Unknown Story is a 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 saying "Mao Tse-tung, who for decades held absolute power over the lives of one-quarter of the world's population, was responsible for well over 70 million deaths in peacetime, more than any other twentieth-century leader.

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 overwhelming praise from reviews in national newspapers and drew praise from some academics but mostly critical or mixed by others. Reviews from many China specialists were critical and cite inaccuracies and selectivity in the use of sources and the polemical portrayal of Mao.