Zhou Enlai
A Life
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $39.99
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- $39.99
Publisher Description
A Financial Times Best Book of the Year
The definitive biography of Zhou Enlai, the first premier and preeminent diplomat of the People’s Republic of China, who protected his country against the excesses of his boss—Chairman Mao.
Zhou Enlai spent twenty-seven years as premier of the People’s Republic of China and ten as its foreign minister. He was also its legendary spymaster. Richard Nixon proclaimed him “the greatest statesman of our era.” Yet Zhou has always been overshadowed by Chairman Mao. Chen Jian brings Zhou into the light, offering a nuanced portrait of a revolutionary and master diplomat whose vision shaped China and the broader world.
Born to a declining mandarin family in 1898, Zhou received a classical education and as a teenager spent time in modernizing Japan. Zhou embraced communist revolution as a vehicle for China’s own development, yet Zhou was never a committed Maoist. While he worked closely with the chairman, he used his extraordinary political and bureaucratic skill to mitigate the damage caused by Mao’s radicalism and maintain China’s international standing.
When Zhou died in 1976, the China we know today was not yet visible on the horizon. He never saw a glistening Shanghai skyline or the emergence of Chinese capitalism. But the Chinese influence now felt in every corner of the globe rests on Zhou’s work.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Long-serving Chinese premier Zhou Enlai (1898–1976) played the conscience to Mao Zedong's capricious lord of misrule, according to this sober biography. Historian Chen (Mao's China and the Cold War) recaps Zhou's career, from his role as the Chinese Communist Party's chief spymaster and diplomat during its civil war with Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist government to his activities as premier and foreign minister following the 1949 Communist victory, when he orchestrated such geopolitical breakthroughs as President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to Beijing. The book's fascinating core is Zhou's relationship with Party Chairman Mao, who began as Zhou's subordinate before accruing total power—a development Zhou, unlike many purged Party officials, survived through canny maneuvering. Chen styles Zhou as a brilliant organizer and a humane statesman whose "personalized administrative capacity... trapped Mao's seemingly unlimited power" and moderated his excesses. For instance, Zhou issued prescient warnings about Mao's Great Leap Forward policy, which led to economic collapse and famine, and helped stabilize the country after Mao's government purges during the Cultural Revolution. In the lucid, well-researched narrative, Zhou often comes off as a servile figure—he coldly joined in denouncing comrades persecuted by Mao, including his own daughter—which somewhat clouds Chen's vision of the premier as a master architect working behind the scenes to lay the groundwork for modern China's prosperity. Still, it's a satisfyingly fine-grained account of an influential figure often lost in Mao's shadow. Photos.
