Here are some be of my "all time favorite books and some thoughts about each.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. This book, set in Tsarist Russia, is the definitive commentary on male-female relationships. All types, for all different reasons. Despite the geographic and temporal differences, the compromises we make as well as the passions we all seek are brilliantly set forth. While I prefer non-fiction to fiction, and modern to older books, this book had me addicted like an addict to the pipe.
As an aside, I just wanted to scream out, when some of the characters engaged in their excesses of wealth and frivolity, "Do you know what is coming? Stalin, you fools." I think there is a message for our society in that book as well. As Jane Fonda commented to Piers Morgan on CNN, the greed in our society is terrifying. Their (Tsarist Russia) blind greed and assumptions as to wealth entitlement led to one of the most terrifying world wide disruptions and distributions in wealth, political stability, and legal tyranny ever witnessed in recorded history. Where are our blind assumptions about our entitlement and wealth going to lead us?
But the book is noteworthy for that other part of life, love, romance, procreation, and sexual recreation.
A Generation Lost, China Under the Cultural Revolution by Zi-Ping Luo and I lump it with another of my favorites, Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng. Both describe the Cultural revolution in China, as suffered by two people in Shanghai. The first author was a young girl of no prominence but absolute brilliance, and the second author was a retired woman with wealth and education. Both suffered extensively and needlessly, which showed the madness of the Cultural Revolution. Both women were exceptional people who showed how one can overcome and even thrive despite a period of tremendous personal hardship and general oppression in a society which had gone temporarily mad. Neither lost hope, and both eventually survived and eventually emigrated to America and told their tales, although it is important to note that the Cultural Revolution has been denounced by the Chinese Communist Party, many of the founders and leaders of the Party suffered tremendously during the Cultural Revolution, leaders such as Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi. The former would up leading China after Chairman Mao died and helped to institute the denunciation of the Cultural Revolution and the institution of political reforms in China to help prevent the recurrence of such oppression. Liu Shaoqi is not so well known in the West because he was in fact murdered in the Cultural Revolution but was in fact the second most powerful leader in China (after Chairman Mao) and was a hero of the Chinese Communist Revolution and widely respected as a brave and honest leader who cared about the Chinese people, and for that reason, opposed Chairman Mao. It was Liu's opposition to Chairman Mao which is often credited as the reason for the entire Cultural Revolution. Having destroyed China's economy in the "Great Leap Forward" and caused a massive famine, caring and honest leaders such as Liu Shaoqi stood up to Chairman Mao and threatened his authority, leadership, and legacy. Chairman Mao decided to eliminate any threat that Lie Shaoqi and his followers posed and staged the entire Cultural Revolution as one of the most costly efforts to consolidate power and eliminate threats to the rule of one leader in the entire history of the world.
The world's most populace country was convulsed into a violent internal conflict, costing the lives of tens of thousands of people, if not hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, and setting back the economy, culture, and education of one of the most advanced countries in the world for the sole purpose of eliminating a handful of political opponents. The entire population of China was caught up in this violent upheaval with only a very few people even having the vaguest suspicion of what was really transpiring. These books are the actual stories of two such people who survived some of the worst atrocities of the Cultural Revolution. Those who had it worse did not live to tell the tale. which no one understood and served no purpose.
Zhou Enlai - The Last Perfect Revolutionary by Gao Wenqian. This is the true biography of Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai,. who began as a young heroic leader and founder of the Chinese Communist Party and continued as one of its leaders, second only in power to Chairman Mao, until his death in 1976 (he was still working and still in power as Premier of China. While the author was condemned for his work by the Communist Party, and the book banned in China, I am at a loss to understand the reason. While the book does not help Chairman Mao's reputation, it does not reveal anything new. On the other hand, it shows how truly brilliant, honest, dedicated and moral Premier Zhou Enlai was. He was a world class leader on par with Churchill and Ben Gurion. Few others even came close to him in terms of his intellectual ability, devotion to his people and country, bravery (he actually fought and risked his own life unlike many leaders in war who command others in the "front lines" from the safety of a command post.
The author apparently had access, for 14 years, to top secret archived files of the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party and smuggles his notes to Hong Kong where he later wrote this book. The Party is so concerned with protecting the legacy and of the Chairman that it suppresses accurate historical accounts of other founders and leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, leaders who were unmatched for bravery, selflessness, and the desire to create an egalitarian state and liberate a severely oppressed people. The legacy of people like Premier Zhou Enlai, and the illegitimacy, corruption, and dictatorship of the Nationalist Government headed by Chiang Kai-Shek does more to establish the moral and political legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party then any criticisms of Chairman Mao and his role in the history of China.
Exodus and Mila 18 by Leon Uris. These two books overlap in their discussion of the holocaust, although the former deals more with the creation of the State of Israel. Both are fiction, although they might as well be factual, as the events actually took place, and with so many people and so many stories (lost in the gas chambers and ghettos), there were many heroes with many stories which were just as fascinating as those set forth. Mila 18 talks about the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto which actually did occur and did embarrass both the Nazi super race \and the Polish resistance fighters who were all to happy to see the Nazis kill the Jews because the resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto managed to oppose the Nazi elite SS troops for longer then the entire country of Poland did. Also, the Jews had virtually no arms and were given almost no help by their fellow" comrades in arms," the Polish Resistance fighters.
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Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. This book, set in Tsarist Russia, is the definitive commentary on male-female relationships. All types, for all different reasons. Despite the geographic and temporal differences, the compromises we make as well as the passions we all seek are brilliantly set forth. While I prefer non-fiction to fiction, and modern to older books, this book had me addicted like an addict to the pipe.
As an aside, I just wanted to scream out, when some of the characters engaged in their excesses of wealth and frivolity, "Do you know what is coming? Stalin, you fools." I think there is a message for our society in that book as well. As Jane Fonda commented to Piers Morgan on CNN, the greed in our society is terrifying. Their (Tsarist Russia) blind greed and assumptions as to wealth entitlement led to one of the most terrifying world wide disruptions and distributions in wealth, political stability, and legal tyranny ever witnessed in recorded history. Where are our blind assumptions about our entitlement and wealth going to lead us?
But the book is noteworthy for that other part of life, love, romance, procreation, and sexual recreation.
A Generation Lost, China Under the Cultural Revolution by Zi-Ping Luo and I lump it with another of my favorites, Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng. Both describe the Cultural revolution in China, as suffered by two people in Shanghai. The first author was a young girl of no prominence but absolute brilliance, and the second author was a retired woman with wealth and education. Both suffered extensively and needlessly, which showed the madness of the Cultural Revolution. Both women were exceptional people who showed how one can overcome and even thrive despite a period of tremendous personal hardship and general oppression in a society which had gone temporarily mad. Neither lost hope, and both eventually survived and eventually emigrated to America and told their tales, although it is important to note that the Cultural Revolution has been denounced by the Chinese Communist Party, many of the founders and leaders of the Party suffered tremendously during the Cultural Revolution, leaders such as Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi. The former would up leading China after Chairman Mao died and helped to institute the denunciation of the Cultural Revolution and the institution of political reforms in China to help prevent the recurrence of such oppression. Liu Shaoqi is not so well known in the West because he was in fact murdered in the Cultural Revolution but was in fact the second most powerful leader in China (after Chairman Mao) and was a hero of the Chinese Communist Revolution and widely respected as a brave and honest leader who cared about the Chinese people, and for that reason, opposed Chairman Mao. It was Liu's opposition to Chairman Mao which is often credited as the reason for the entire Cultural Revolution. Having destroyed China's economy in the "Great Leap Forward" and caused a massive famine, caring and honest leaders such as Liu Shaoqi stood up to Chairman Mao and threatened his authority, leadership, and legacy. Chairman Mao decided to eliminate any threat that Lie Shaoqi and his followers posed and staged the entire Cultural Revolution as one of the most costly efforts to consolidate power and eliminate threats to the rule of one leader in the entire history of the world.
The world's most populace country was convulsed into a violent internal conflict, costing the lives of tens of thousands of people, if not hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, and setting back the economy, culture, and education of one of the most advanced countries in the world for the sole purpose of eliminating a handful of political opponents. The entire population of China was caught up in this violent upheaval with only a very few people even having the vaguest suspicion of what was really transpiring. These books are the actual stories of two such people who survived some of the worst atrocities of the Cultural Revolution. Those who had it worse did not live to tell the tale. which no one understood and served no purpose.
Zhou Enlai - The Last Perfect Revolutionary by Gao Wenqian. This is the true biography of Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai,. who began as a young heroic leader and founder of the Chinese Communist Party and continued as one of its leaders, second only in power to Chairman Mao, until his death in 1976 (he was still working and still in power as Premier of China. While the author was condemned for his work by the Communist Party, and the book banned in China, I am at a loss to understand the reason. While the book does not help Chairman Mao's reputation, it does not reveal anything new. On the other hand, it shows how truly brilliant, honest, dedicated and moral Premier Zhou Enlai was. He was a world class leader on par with Churchill and Ben Gurion. Few others even came close to him in terms of his intellectual ability, devotion to his people and country, bravery (he actually fought and risked his own life unlike many leaders in war who command others in the "front lines" from the safety of a command post.
The author apparently had access, for 14 years, to top secret archived files of the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party and smuggles his notes to Hong Kong where he later wrote this book. The Party is so concerned with protecting the legacy and of the Chairman that it suppresses accurate historical accounts of other founders and leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, leaders who were unmatched for bravery, selflessness, and the desire to create an egalitarian state and liberate a severely oppressed people. The legacy of people like Premier Zhou Enlai, and the illegitimacy, corruption, and dictatorship of the Nationalist Government headed by Chiang Kai-Shek does more to establish the moral and political legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party then any criticisms of Chairman Mao and his role in the history of China.
Exodus and Mila 18 by Leon Uris. These two books overlap in their discussion of the holocaust, although the former deals more with the creation of the State of Israel. Both are fiction, although they might as well be factual, as the events actually took place, and with so many people and so many stories (lost in the gas chambers and ghettos), there were many heroes with many stories which were just as fascinating as those set forth. Mila 18 talks about the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto which actually did occur and did embarrass both the Nazi super race \and the Polish resistance fighters who were all to happy to see the Nazis kill the Jews because the resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto managed to oppose the Nazi elite SS troops for longer then the entire country of Poland did. Also, the Jews had virtually no arms and were given almost no help by their fellow" comrades in arms," the Polish Resistance fighters.
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