Exposing Mao  July 10, 2005 In the biography she wrote with her
husband, Jung Chang argues that Mao Zedong was as evil as Hitler
and Stalin.  In the biography she wrote with her husband, Jung
Chang argues that Mao Zedong was as evil as Hitler and Stalin.
Jung Chang's parents were denounced as class traitors during the
Cultural Revolution. The Wild Swans author tells Nigel Farndale
about writing a biography of "the biggest mass murderer in
history".   The "he" referred to is Mao Zedong, the subject of
an 800-page biography Chang has spent the past 10 years
researching and writing with her husband, the British historian
Jon Halliday. It occurs to me that her waist-length black hair
might also be a reminder of, or rather reaction to, Mao: when
Chang joined the Red Guard at 14 she was forced to chop off her
plaits because long hair was considered bourgeois. "No, no," she
says with a tight smile. "I just like long hair, and so does my
husband."  She certainly has a brisk, no-nonsense way about her,
this Jung Chan