Mao

The husband-and-wife team of writer Jung Chang and historian Jon Halliday follow Mao Zedong from his early life and entry into the Chinese Communist Party to his rule over the People's Republic, portraying him as a tyrant driven by personal power rather than idealism or ideology. Their decade of research drew on interviews with hundreds of people once close to Mao, recent memoirs by Chinese political figures and newly opened archives in China and Russia. They argue that he owed his control of the party to Stalin's patronage, that his role in the Long March was exaggerated, and that he caused a famine, the worst in history, that killed 38 million people. Many China specialists criticized its use of sources.

Richard Branson put it on his list of 65 books to read in a lifetime.