MAO AND THE CHINESE REVOLUTION. With Thirty-seven Poems by Mao Tse-tung translated from the Chinese by Michael Bullock and Jerome Ch'en.

Here is abook about Mao from someone who had never met or interviewed him (my own supposition) Of course, it is different from 'Red Star Over China' by Edgar Snow with face to face interviews with Mao. But I do think the author has wriiten a very good and comprehensive book. There are two things that bother me. This book ends with the founding of the People's Republic of China. Who knew that there were more spectacular things to come ? (The Korean War, the purges in the 1950's, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and the power struggle with Lin Biao) Secondly, Mao wrote a lot of good poems, but translating them into English makes those poems meaningless and obsolete. Mr Chen, can you write a sequel ?

Jerome Ch'en's 1967 book, "Mao and the Chinese Revolution" is a very balanced survey of the life of Mao tes-Tung, the great Chinese revolutionary. The book is easy to read and requires to previous education in Chinese History to enjoy. The only shortcoming of the book is that the story ends with the 1949 Revolution in China. The reader must turn to other sources for as good an analysis of the life of Mao after he came to power in China.