Comrade Chiang Ch'Ing
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
She was the most powerful woman in China — actress, revolutionary, and feared political architect of the Cultural Revolution — and Comrade Chiang Ch'ing is the only authoritative portrait of Jiang Qing drawn from her own words. Based on unprecedented, hours-long interviews conducted by historian Roxane Witke in 1972, this landmark biography chronicles the extraordinary and turbulent life of Mao Zedong's fourth wife, tracing her origins in poverty-stricken Shandong province through her rise as a Shanghai film star to her emergence as one of the most formidable and ruthless figures in twentieth-century Chinese politics. Witke presents a compelling study in ideological ambition and personal reinvention, illuminating the inner workings of the Chinese Communist Party through the prism of one woman's consuming drive for power. The biography argues that Jiang Qing was no mere appendage to Mao's legacy but a calculating political force in her own right, whose influence over art, culture, and propaganda reshaped an entire nation. Written with scholarly rigour yet compelled forward by the drama of its subject, this work raises a haunting question: how much of history is shaped not by ideology alone, but by the unchecked ambitions of those who stand closest to power?
Author: Roxane Witke
Format: Hardback
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
She was the most powerful woman in China — actress, revolutionary, and feared political architect of the Cultural Revolution — and Comrade Chiang Ch'ing is the only authoritative portrait of Jiang Qing drawn from her own words. Based on unprecedented, hours-long interviews conducted by historian Roxane Witke in 1972, this landmark biography chronicles the extraordinary and turbulent life of Mao Zedong's fourth wife, tracing her origins in poverty-stricken Shandong province through her rise as a Shanghai film star to her emergence as one of the most formidable and ruthless figures in twentieth-century Chinese politics. Witke presents a compelling study in ideological ambition and personal reinvention, illuminating the inner workings of the Chinese Communist Party through the prism of one woman's consuming drive for power. The biography argues that Jiang Qing was no mere appendage to Mao's legacy but a calculating political force in her own right, whose influence over art, culture, and propaganda reshaped an entire nation. Written with scholarly rigour yet compelled forward by the drama of its subject, this work raises a haunting question: how much of history is shaped not by ideology alone, but by the unchecked ambitions of those who stand closest to power?