The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao's Personal Physician
by Li, Zhisui; Tai, Hung-chao, with Thurston, Anne F. (Translated by), and Nathan, Andrew J. (Foreword by)
- Used
- very good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good/Very Good
- ISBN 10
- 0679400354
- ISBN 13
- 9780679400356
- Seller
-
Santa Barbara, California, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: Random House, 1994. xxii, 682 pages, illustrations; 24 cm. Near fine. Firm binding, clean inside copy. Spine slightly rolled at the crown. Stated First Edition. Dust jacket with light shelfwear. Another copy available. OVERSIZE! No priority/international, except by special arrangement. "From 1954 until Mao Zedong's death twenty-two years later, Dr. Li Zhisui was the Chinese ruler's personal physician, which put him in almost daily - and increasingly intimate - contact with Mao and his inner circle. For most of these years, Mao's health was excellent; thus he and the doctor had time to discuss political and personal matters. Dr. Li recorded many of these conversations in his diaries as well as in his memory. In The Private Life of Chairman Mao he vividly reconstructs his extraordinary experience. The result is a book that will profoundly alter our view of Chairman Mao and of China under his rule. Dr. Li clarifies numerous long-standing puzzles, such as the true nature of Mao's feelings toward the United States and the Soviet Union. He describes Mao's deliberate rudeness toward Khrushchev when the Soviet leader paid his secret visit to Beijing in 1958, and we learn here, for the first time, how Mao came to invite the American table tennis team to China, a decision that led to Nixon's historic visit a few months later. We also learn why Mao took the disastrous Great Leap Forward, which resulted in the worst famine in recorded history, and his equally strange reason for risking war with the United States by shelling the Taiwanese islands of Quemoy and Matsu. Dr. Li supplies surprising portraits of Zhou Enlai and many other top leaders. He describes Mao's perverse relationship with his wife, and gives us insight into the sexual politics of Mao's court. We witness Mao's bizarre death and the even stranger events that followed it. Dr. Li tells of Mao's remarkable gift for intimacy, as well as of his indifference to the suffering and deaths of millions of his fellow Chinese, including old comrades. Readers will find here a full and accurate account of Mao's sex life, and of such personal details as his peculiar sleeping arrangements and his dependency on barbiturates." - Publisher.. 1st. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo.
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Details
- Bookseller
- LEFT COAST BOOKS (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 107941
- Title
- The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao's Personal Physician
- Author
- Li, Zhisui; Tai, Hung-chao, with Thurston, Anne F. (Translated by), and Nathan, Andrew J. (Foreword by)
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good
- Edition
- 1st
- ISBN 10
- 0679400354
- ISBN 13
- 9780679400356
- Publisher
- Random House
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1994
- Size
- 8vo
Terms of Sale
LEFT COAST BOOKS
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About the Seller
LEFT COAST BOOKS
Biblio member since 2016
Santa Barbara, California
About LEFT COAST BOOKS
Established in Santa Barbara, California, in 2004, Left Coast Books specializes in ART BOOKS, offering thousands of titles on painting, sculpture, graphic arts, architecture, design, photography, film, video, and performance art. We also sell classics, literature, history, and a broad variety of useful academic books.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- Shelfwear
- Minor wear resulting from a book being place on, and taken from a bookshelf, especially along the bottom edge.
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Rolled
- rolled spine or spine rolled. Damage to a book created by pressure to the spine making it fold or crease in the cover. Damage...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....