New Books on Mao Zedong, Maoism, and Consequences

Two new books I'll simply note here quickly. I haven't read either and am simply passing along recommendations from others.

Alexander Pantsov and Steven Levine, Mao: the Real Story

Yang Jisheng, Tombstone.

Yang's title sounds, to an American, like it might consist of a study of a notorious Wild-West venue. Apparently not, though. That subtitle does a better job of clueing us in.

I flipped through the pages of Tombstone on a trip to the bookstore recently and encountered the following passage:

"As famine intensified in 1960 and the number of deaths rose, Mao Zedong finlly began to revise his policy in the second half of the year....In effect, local officials were scapegoated in a way that consolidated the government's power and intensified its extralegal behavior."

Extralegal. That's a neat word in the context.