Product: Biography - Mao Tse Tung: China's Peasant Emperor (2005)
Rating: 5.0
Mao Revealed
I loved this video with its emphasis on the personality of Chairman Mao and his early experiences. His childhood and young adulthood are viewed as determinants of his attitude toward intellectuals, the university, city dwellers and the peasantry. Mao was revealed as the man. A word of caution to the use of this video in a classroom or as the only source of information on Mao's life. Only in passing does this video explain the Cultural Revolution and the decentralization of industry into small scale enterprises as caused by theories of development in vogue or internal power struggles. The causation of the Cultural Revolution and the reasoning behind Mao's attempt to make steel in small smelters located in the countryside is complex. Mao's wife's nuttiness or Mao's early childhood doesn't have sufficient explanatory power. The need for political control to achieve stability is ignored. Wonderful photography, however, makes up for these shortcomings.