Wild Swans : Three Daughters of China | 
| Author: Jung Chang
Publisher: Touchstone
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy Used: $4.50
You Save: $11.50 (72%)
New (64) Used (87) Collectible (3) from $4.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  349 reviews
Sales Rank: 1110
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.4
ISBN: 0743246985
Dewey Decimal Number: 920.051
EAN: 9780743246989
ASIN: 0743246985
Publication Date: August 12, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Bending on the flaps, highlighting within, sticker in back
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
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.
Product Description
Blending the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history, Wild Swans has become a bestselling classic in thirty languages, with more than ten million copies sold. The story of three generations in twentieth-century China, it is an engrossing record of Mao's impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love.Jung Chang describes the life of her grandmother, a warlord's concubine; her mother's struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents' experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a "barefoot doctor," a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving -- and ultimately uplifting -- detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 344 more reviews...
 This book will last for many generations to come July 20, 2008
I won this great book when I was 18 years old. Until today, after almost two decades, I can still remember the story very well. Every page in this book is so alive with senses! I could really see the transitional period from one generation to the next; from the warlord era to the cultural revolution. It's simply amazing. At one point, I cried reading the hardship of the Chinese people. I also felt bravery in them. The unity of the people as well. Although it's not a history book, it gives an insight, a quick one, into the history of China.
 I liked the book, but it may not be for you. July 19, 2008
I have mixed feelings about the book Wild Swans. It certainly was not a page turner, rather it was a book I could lay down at any time, and even walk away from for a couple of days, which I did a number of times. It didn't read like a novel, as some memoir/biographies do, rather it was as though the author, Jung Chang was narrating to me the history of her family, beginning with her grandmother. The narration is well written, but long, and ends when she is 26. A short epilogue at the end then updates you as to what she has done with her life in the 10 years following the writing of the book. So if you are looking for a wildly entertaining book you can hardly put down, this is not a book for you.
Having said this, I do not consider reading the book was time wasted. If you are at all interested in the history of China, especially what it was like under Mao's years in power, you would find many fascinating passages in the book. Of course most of us know that Mao was not good for the people of China, but I was truly surprised at what all went on under Mao and his wife. Some of it was so strange, that it seemed down right bizarre to me, such as when Mao determined that grass and beautiful things should be removed from the cities. People all over China were pulling up flowers and grass. Students even spent school time out in the yard pulling up the grass. Reading the book was a learning experience about a time that it turned out I really knew very little about.
 Amazingly moving and well written June 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is amazingly moving and well written. Anyone who is even remotely curious about the life of ordinary Chinese women throughout the 20th century should read this work. It not only describes the stories of three generations of Chinese women, but it transports the reader to world that the author is describing. I definitely recommend this book. Often I will sell biographies after reading them, but this book is a keeper.
Fantasticly Fun Read May 25, 2008
A wonderful narrative of the pre-1949 and cultural revolution China told through three generations.
Though Jung is anti-Mao, her book does a great job of providing a relatively unbiased personal account of this pivotal period in Chinese history.
Jung's colorful family history gives her fodder for intriguing anecdotes and the reader a perspective into the life of a "well-to-do"/politically active Chinese family.
Want to Understand China? Read This Book April 23, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Before leaving for my 2004-05 sojourn in China, I naturally sought to acquaint myself with the culture in which I was about to live and work. Of the various books I read (which ranged from Chinese history to essays from American expats to descriptions of "the Asian mind" as applied to Western business people), it turned out that this book was BY FAR the most helpful in my day-to-day interactions -- both social and business -- with my Chinese associates.
Spanning the early 20th Century when author Chang's grandmother was given as a concubine to a warlord general, through mid-century when Chang's parents joyously risked their lives in the Communist takeover, to 1978 when Chang herself left China, WILD SWANS paints a vivid picture of the China of today. I found that the information in this book, told in first-person story form, gave me far more understanding of my Mainland Chinese colleagues than any journalistic writings ever did, or could have.
Since China is already a major force in western economies (especially America's), and will only become more central to the global economy, I consider it useful to share the observation of my personal experience: Understanding the RECENT LIFE EXPERIENCES of a nation's citizens is even important than understanding its customs. The good news is that history--told well--is a fascinating read! And Jung Chang's story is hard to top.
Doni Tamblyn is author of Laugh and Learn: 95 Ways to Use Humor for More Effective Teaching and Training and The Big Book of Humorous Training Games (Big Book of Business Games Series)
|
|
|
