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BY TIMOTHY CHEEK
NEW YORK: PALGRAVE, 2002
HARDCOVER: 259 PAGES, ISBN: 0-312-29429-8

Reviewed by Adam Cathcart

Mao Zedong retains significant symbolic potency in the People’s Republic of China. Whether as an intransigent youth, voluble guerrilla leader, or fulminating toward the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s figure shows no sign of receding from the stage of history. Today, the “fourth generation” of Chinese Communist leaders brandish Mao as a talisman against instability and a patron saint for the peasantry whose steady influx into Beijing could ultimately dislodge the Chairman from his tomb in the shadow of Tiananmen.