Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am a Chinese. This is the worst "history" book I have ever read. Full of lies. It maybe to some people's taste. Today, Mao can be discussed openly in China since CCP publically told the people the mistakes inthe cultrual revolution and great leap. The Great Leap happened between 1958-1961. The disasters happened plus the political mistakes, Many Chinese starved to death. The political errors did contributed to the deaths. But not too much. Without the leadship of Mao, and without the great improvement in the agriculture, more people should have died. How many died? Cannot be more than 10 million. All Chinese know Mao's mistakes. But most of Chinese still respect him as the great leader of China. Under his leadership: 1. Chinsese did not worry about the invasion from other countries. Chinese had been struggling for this since opium war in 1840. 2. There was no warlords anymore 3. China was basically united except Hongkong, Macau and Taiwan. Hongkong and Macau's status were Mao's wise arrangement. They were the rade windows for the mainland when western countries had sanction against China. When China did not need those windows after the reform, China gov took them back right way. Taiwan issue was the result of civil war. Even there are a lot of troubles across the Taiwan strait, both side are still Chinese and bloodhood still exists. That's the fight between brothers. Not a big deal for China that has a long history. 4. China had free and functioning public education system. Every one had the equal rights for studying. Even the colledge students were paid for studying. In 1976, more than 70% of Chinese could read and write. There were only 20% before Mao's leadership. 5. Cheap but functioning public health system. No protitute, no sex-related disease, no big plague. Chinese life expectancy increased from 35 in 1949 to 65 in 1976. That's a hugh improvement. 6. A relatively modern agricultural system. More than half of the arable land could be watered. Fertilizer ussage per MU (A chinese unit, 666 square mters) increased from 0.2kg to 20kg. A 13 large fertilizer devices were ordered from wetern countries when China improved relationship with US. Those devices began production in aroun 1980 and pushed China's agriculture to a high level. Crops productionincreased by 2.5 times, cotton 4.6 times, meat 2.3 times. Hybrid rice was developed and extensively used in China. 7. A relatively complete mordern industrial system. China could make trucks, tractors, planes, large ships, locomotives, TVs, computers, radios, cameras, power generators, ................anything you can name. Iron and steel production increased by 125 times, coal 15 times, electricity 47 times, petrolum 726 times, cement 71 times, ........ China achived this from nothing. This speed cannot be considered as slow. These truth cannot be denied. 8. A complete defense industry. China could build tanks, fighters, warships, missiles, n-bomb, h-bomb, SSN, ICBMs......... China achived this from nothing again. 9. Built similar railroad between 1949-1976 as what we did between 1978-today. China only had 22000km of railroad, but only 11000km was operational. Others was damaged or destroyed in the long time wars. But Chind had around 45000km of railroad in 1976. Today China had 70000km of modern railroad system. Considering CHina was much poor and much less developed. That speed was amazing. 10. The third front construction. That's a project for the possible war with USSR. It promoted the industry of western China to a high level. in 1976, there was no big development gap between eastern and western China. When Deng Xiaoping took the power, he said a lot of "mistakes" Mao had made. All of us used to think that reform is always good in China. But unfortunately, That's not true. The scientific research lagged more than the reform. before the reform, China was catching up. But the gap was widened between 1980-1995. The agricultrural reform? Proved to be a big failure. There is no or very little changes in recent 10 years. That's a big trouble in China now. It proves that Deng is shortsighted. Funny thing, there are still handful of relic socialism villadges in China, there are rich and more competetive in the market economy. See the websites of these villadges: [...] [...] [...] Don't forget, they are socialism villadges. They are rich, maybe richer than most of Americans. In Huaxi villadge, every family has a house of more than 3000 sqaure feet. Plus each family has 40000US$ to 400000US$ cash savings. Industrial refrom is a failure too. The education reform is now being firecely critized in China The public heath system is now being firecely critized in China. The expanding corruptions. Chinese people and gov are rethinking about the reform. Some maybe changed back. For example the free education, subsidized public health system.... Mao is getting more respect from ordinary Chinese people. His mistakes were totally forgiven by most of Chinese. Of course, Hhe led revolution in China and definitely he has a lot of political enemies. This book is a junk and only the stupid will really enjoy it.