Author | Gao Wenqian |
---|---|
Language | English(Translated from Chinese language by Peter Rand and Lawrence R. Sullivan) |
Genre | Biography |
Publisher | Public Affair |
Publication date | 2008 |
Media type | Print (Hardback) |
ISBN | 1586486454 |
Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary, ISBN:1586486454, is a book written by Gao Wenqian, previously a researcher at CPC Central Party Literature Research Center, where he penned the official biographies of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong. The book was published in 2008 by Public Affair in English. Based on secret and classified Chinese archives documents smuggled out of China, the book is a biography of Zhou Enlai, Premier of China from 1949 to 1976, the most important and mythologized communist China leader. Zhou, the greatest Chinese political survivor, is portrayed as "artful, crafty, and politically supple", qualities that enable Zhou to remain at the center stage of Chinese politics for fifty tears, through the turbulent years of Long March and Cultural Revolution. [1]
Introduction
Andrew Nathen (China scholar) writes in the introduction: Zhou Enlai was a man *“unique…in his capacity to endure abasement”;
- was Mao’s “indispensable yet despised assistant...(and) enabler”
- had a “servant mentality”
- possessed “an inability to take existential risks, a psychological need to be another leader’s number two.”[2]
Reviews
- "Gao points out, the collapse of the former Soviet Union and East European Communist countries began with the demystification of official history and the re-evaluation of major historical events and people. This is his contribution to that process in his native country." -- Tribune, December 30th, 2007
- "Zhou Enlai, usually obeyed him(Mao Zedong), at first because they shared his ruthlessness, and later, understandably if contemptibly, to save themselves." -- Far Eastern Economic Review, December Issue
- "a valuable and revealing book on the brutish and incredibly cruel nature of the Maoist regime..." -- BBC History Magazine, January Issue
- "an incredibly fascinating eyewitness or well researched account about a man the West knew little about." -- Daily Kos, December 12th, 2007[3]
Reference
- ^ http://www.amazon.com/Zhou-Enlai-Last-Perfect-Revolutionary/dp/158648415X Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary [Hardcover]
- ^ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/may/28/the-mystery-of-zhou-enlai/ The Mystery of Zhou Enlai May 28, 2009 Jonathan D. Spence
- ^ http://www.amazon.com/Zhou-Enlai-Last-Perfect-Revolutionary/dp/158648415X Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary [Hardcover]