In Wild Swans Jung Chang recounts the evocative, unsettling, and insistently gripping story of how three generations of women in her family fared in the political maelstrom of China during the 20th century. Chang's grandmother was a warlord's concubine. Her gently raised mother struggled with hardships in the early days of Mao's revolution and rose, like her husband, to a prominent position in the Communist Party before being denounced during the Cultural Revolution. Chang herself marched, worked, and breathed for Mao until ...
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In Wild Swans Jung Chang recounts the evocative, unsettling, and insistently gripping story of how three generations of women in her family fared in the political maelstrom of China during the 20th century. Chang's grandmother was a warlord's concubine. Her gently raised mother struggled with hardships in the early days of Mao's revolution and rose, like her husband, to a prominent position in the Communist Party before being denounced during the Cultural Revolution. Chang herself marched, worked, and breathed for Mao until doubt crept in over the excesses of his policies and purges. Born just a few decades apart, their lives overlap with the end of the warlords' regime and overthrow of the Japanese occupation, violent struggles between the Kuomintang and the Communists to carve up China, and, most poignant for the author, the vicious cycle of purges orchestrated by Chairman Mao that discredited and crushed millions of people, including her parents.
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Just couldn't get into the story even though it sounded fascinating in the description.
Karla F
Oct 27, 2011
Wild Swans - Three Daughters of China
Detailed yet very readable true story of three generations of women and how the Communist and Cultural Revolutions in China during the late 1940' through the 1970's affected their lives and their families. I would like to read another book by Jung Chang.
francmac49
Oct 27, 2011
Chinese young women
Excellent for those who love history and would enjoy the revelations of the power that women can weld.
shipweol
Aug 16, 2007
Really good story
I learned much from this book about growing up during three eras in China. It was so well written that I will now read this author's book on Mao.
I highly recommend this book.
Teacher1918
May 17, 2007
Read this book!
This historical retrospective records the lives of three generations of Jung Chang's family. It documents the Chinese Revolution and Mao's dysfunctional dictatorship. With China's impending rise to world dominance, this important work is a must read.