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waxwingslane's review against another edition
4.0
An appreciatively broad history that is too liberal in outlook to give “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (or the post-colonial African variant) its fair shake, though its scepticism is warranted for the various other perversions of Mao’s project. This book could have focused more on the Chinese context and the specifics of Tse-tung’s policies, given that these provide the entire impetus for Maoism’s global reach.
alexisrt's review against another edition
5.0
This is a really interesting exploration of Maoism less as a philosophy and more as a historical phenomenon across the world. In the US, we're often taught to focus on the USSR as *the* Communist opposition, with China reduced to a secondary player, predominantly in Vietnam and Korea--so we pat ourselves on the back and say "the West won!" after 1989.
What makes this book so good is not just that Lovell shows that this is untrue, but that she does so in a nuanced way. None of the players are reduced to passive victimhood--all have made choices. Maoism had genuine appeal for people, whether or not it lived up to its promises. For itself, China has been an active exporter of ideology (and the power to back it) since before Mao took power. From his time in Yan'an, Mao used journalists to export a vision of himself that was what he wanted them to see: the champion of the peasantry, the man of the earth, of good humor, hard work, anti-imperialism, and equality. It worked. His beliefs--as structured for outsiders--inspired others to follow.
They had reason to. His anti-imperialism was appealing to those people just emerging from colonial rule as in Indochina, Indonesia, and Africa. His exhortations of the peasantry inspired those in deeply unequal societies in Peru and India. China worked to develop those ties--the Belt & Road Initiative is in the news now, but they were training ZANU rebels in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the 1970s and building projects in Zambia.
At the same time, though, Maoism often replicated problems in miniature: the elites, often dominated by men (despite claims to gender equality) dominated the upper ranks of revolutionary movements, talking about the masses as lesser. Naxalite leaders have profited from exploitation of natural resources, even as they criticize the Indian state for the same. Charismatic leaders like the Shining Path's Abimael Guzman led to terror and violence. At its extreme, Maoism led to the killing fields of Democratic Kampuchea and the closed personality cult of North Korea.
The book ends with a disquieting chapter: how Xi Jinping is now taking on the trappings (in a cut rate manner) of the Mao cult, looking to consolidate his power over China and, through economics, to expand his power abroad. Maoism hasn't died.
What makes this book so good is not just that Lovell shows that this is untrue, but that she does so in a nuanced way. None of the players are reduced to passive victimhood--all have made choices. Maoism had genuine appeal for people, whether or not it lived up to its promises. For itself, China has been an active exporter of ideology (and the power to back it) since before Mao took power. From his time in Yan'an, Mao used journalists to export a vision of himself that was what he wanted them to see: the champion of the peasantry, the man of the earth, of good humor, hard work, anti-imperialism, and equality. It worked. His beliefs--as structured for outsiders--inspired others to follow.
They had reason to. His anti-imperialism was appealing to those people just emerging from colonial rule as in Indochina, Indonesia, and Africa. His exhortations of the peasantry inspired those in deeply unequal societies in Peru and India. China worked to develop those ties--the Belt & Road Initiative is in the news now, but they were training ZANU rebels in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the 1970s and building projects in Zambia.
At the same time, though, Maoism often replicated problems in miniature: the elites, often dominated by men (despite claims to gender equality) dominated the upper ranks of revolutionary movements, talking about the masses as lesser. Naxalite leaders have profited from exploitation of natural resources, even as they criticize the Indian state for the same. Charismatic leaders like the Shining Path's Abimael Guzman led to terror and violence. At its extreme, Maoism led to the killing fields of Democratic Kampuchea and the closed personality cult of North Korea.
The book ends with a disquieting chapter: how Xi Jinping is now taking on the trappings (in a cut rate manner) of the Mao cult, looking to consolidate his power over China and, through economics, to expand his power abroad. Maoism hasn't died.
johnmillsxoxo's review against another edition
challenging
informative
medium-paced
4.5
Incredibly thorough and interesting
caelyncobb's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This took me three years to finish not because of the quality of the book but because it is such a (physically) weighty tome. The book itself is one of my favorites in recent times—a truly global history of a modern intellectual movement that is impressively researched and very readable.
generalheff's review against another edition
4.0
Julia Lovell's story of Maoism across the globe is a refreshingly novel take on the subject. Eschewing a focus on such well-trodden topics as the Long March, The Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution, Lovell instead turns the camera outwards - mentioning these gyrations but only as they relate to the international face of Maoism. She covers Indonesian Maoism - one of the earliest such emergences of the doctrine abroad; African Maoism - ever relevant given China's ongoing relationship with the continent; Indian and Nepalese Maoist insurgencies in two of the most engaging chapters given the ideology's surprisingly deep hold there; and even covers Maoist thinking in the West.
The range of examples is good - surprising even, I had no idea just how far Maoism had spread around the world - both with and without wholesale Chinese backing. Nepal is by far and away the most engaging chapter on international flavours of Maoism, principally because - unlike most other places - Maoism actually won there - with Pushpa Kamal Dahal (aka Prachanda), the leader of a Maoist insurgency - being installed as Prime Minister in 2016. A quick Google shows me he returned to power in 2022; Maoism is live and kicking in the 2020s, apparently.
Of course, a lot of the book is dedicated to what Maoism is and here the book does an excellent job of furnishing the reader with some sort of answer (personality cult, focus on peasant / rural issues with a colonial or other power to overthrow, continuous revolution and so on) without being prescriptive. This is important, given the self-contradictory nature of Maoism as enacted by the Great Helmsman himself. To offer a simple schema would do violence to Mao's own convoluted practicing of his eponymous doctrine. And this is perhaps where the book's greatest strength lies - by discussing a range of countries rather than just China itself, the author can draw out different themes of Maoist thought as they are played out around the world, so better illustrating to the reader what this clashing set of ideas is.
Indeed, the fact that such different revolutions and philosophies have emerged from a monomial glut of stances is probably the best illustration of its inherent contradictions (or dialectic, a Marxist may claim) that could be achieved. This also explains why Maoism as a concept evokes so little interest among Western audiences and, perhaps, why Mao himself generates so little disquiet while few could adhere to Stalinist, Khmer Rouge or Nazi thinking without upsetting at least a few people at a respectable dinner party.
The book does sag under its own weight at times; 500 pages is not excessive but some chapters can dissolve into a list of facts and 'people of relevance to Maoism in country X' - particularly the chapter on Maoism in the US and Western Europe which lacks the punchy narrative of Maoist machinations in other countries like India. Even in the more 'story like' chapters such as India, the author can take one too many detour into the nitty gritty of the players, or draw in some unnecessary Chinese reference where none would have sufficed.
For an example see chapter 10, where a fascinating description of the Naxalite rebellion (an extant insurgency in India) is derailed with a discussion of Lu Xun - all for the sake of borrowing the writer's turn-of-phrase to describe said Naxalites. It is only a few lines but it breaks the flow and occurs one too many times in an already fact-and-name heavy book. Use of ridiculous words like 'urtext' and 'anomie' can do the same (though this is probably a pot-kettle criticism from the reviewer who just tried to re-deploy the term 'monomial' to describe a single-named messy concept such as Maoism - so perhaps those in glass house &c. &c).
But perhaps I'm being too harsh. Elsewhere the level of detail pays off: in a discussion of Chinese aid to Africa in relation to the Soviets, we hear first how a starving China in the grips of the Great Famine in 1959 gave 10,000 tons of rice free to Guinea: "doubtless, to Chinese delight, the Soviets made a hash of their own aid package, unloading onto the docks of the capital Conakry misaddressed piles of snowploughs." So the nitty gritty can be worth it - and overall this book is a highly informative, if sometimes slightly dry, overview of a too-little thought about but important ideology not only - as I learnt somewhat to my shock - due to the continuing influence it plays in countries around the world but also because of the growing reintegration of Maoism into Xi Jinping thought today. Tomorrow may be more shaped by Mao - in one of his many guises - than could have been imagined only a decade or so ago.
The range of examples is good - surprising even, I had no idea just how far Maoism had spread around the world - both with and without wholesale Chinese backing. Nepal is by far and away the most engaging chapter on international flavours of Maoism, principally because - unlike most other places - Maoism actually won there - with Pushpa Kamal Dahal (aka Prachanda), the leader of a Maoist insurgency - being installed as Prime Minister in 2016. A quick Google shows me he returned to power in 2022; Maoism is live and kicking in the 2020s, apparently.
Of course, a lot of the book is dedicated to what Maoism is and here the book does an excellent job of furnishing the reader with some sort of answer (personality cult, focus on peasant / rural issues with a colonial or other power to overthrow, continuous revolution and so on) without being prescriptive. This is important, given the self-contradictory nature of Maoism as enacted by the Great Helmsman himself. To offer a simple schema would do violence to Mao's own convoluted practicing of his eponymous doctrine. And this is perhaps where the book's greatest strength lies - by discussing a range of countries rather than just China itself, the author can draw out different themes of Maoist thought as they are played out around the world, so better illustrating to the reader what this clashing set of ideas is.
Indeed, the fact that such different revolutions and philosophies have emerged from a monomial glut of stances is probably the best illustration of its inherent contradictions (or dialectic, a Marxist may claim) that could be achieved. This also explains why Maoism as a concept evokes so little interest among Western audiences and, perhaps, why Mao himself generates so little disquiet while few could adhere to Stalinist, Khmer Rouge or Nazi thinking without upsetting at least a few people at a respectable dinner party.
The book does sag under its own weight at times; 500 pages is not excessive but some chapters can dissolve into a list of facts and 'people of relevance to Maoism in country X' - particularly the chapter on Maoism in the US and Western Europe which lacks the punchy narrative of Maoist machinations in other countries like India. Even in the more 'story like' chapters such as India, the author can take one too many detour into the nitty gritty of the players, or draw in some unnecessary Chinese reference where none would have sufficed.
For an example see chapter 10, where a fascinating description of the Naxalite rebellion (an extant insurgency in India) is derailed with a discussion of Lu Xun - all for the sake of borrowing the writer's turn-of-phrase to describe said Naxalites. It is only a few lines but it breaks the flow and occurs one too many times in an already fact-and-name heavy book. Use of ridiculous words like 'urtext' and 'anomie' can do the same (though this is probably a pot-kettle criticism from the reviewer who just tried to re-deploy the term 'monomial' to describe a single-named messy concept such as Maoism - so perhaps those in glass house &c. &c).
But perhaps I'm being too harsh. Elsewhere the level of detail pays off: in a discussion of Chinese aid to Africa in relation to the Soviets, we hear first how a starving China in the grips of the Great Famine in 1959 gave 10,000 tons of rice free to Guinea: "doubtless, to Chinese delight, the Soviets made a hash of their own aid package, unloading onto the docks of the capital Conakry misaddressed piles of snowploughs." So the nitty gritty can be worth it - and overall this book is a highly informative, if sometimes slightly dry, overview of a too-little thought about but important ideology not only - as I learnt somewhat to my shock - due to the continuing influence it plays in countries around the world but also because of the growing reintegration of Maoism into Xi Jinping thought today. Tomorrow may be more shaped by Mao - in one of his many guises - than could have been imagined only a decade or so ago.
alex_rothschilds's review against another edition
slow-paced
4.0
Lovely book that nicely summarises Mao and Maoism
gingerreader99's review against another edition
2.0
2.5
Also a very rare DNF(roughly 75% but it just didn't hold me well enough), I was not really a fan of the author for this one. I appreciate the insights in this text related to other movements in different countries but within the first chapter the author tried to draw parallels between Mao and Trump and that really put me off right away and unfortunately did little to win me back. Really lost me with the portrayal of Ho Chi Minh as a Maoist though.
So a nod to the historical insights here but a pass on the author's bias and arguments.
Also a very rare DNF(roughly 75% but it just didn't hold me well enough), I was not really a fan of the author for this one. I appreciate the insights in this text related to other movements in different countries but within the first chapter the author tried to draw parallels between Mao and Trump and that really put me off right away and unfortunately did little to win me back. Really lost me with the portrayal of Ho Chi Minh as a Maoist though.
So a nod to the historical insights here but a pass on the author's bias and arguments.
milespressland's review against another edition
adventurous
This Mao guy seems like a bit of a wrong'un