Slavoj Žižek, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London, UK-- "Mao Ze Dong is celebrated (or cursed) as a revolutionary leader, but the philosophical foundation of his activity is largely ignored. In his superb study, Allinson fills in this lack. Mao's thought is not just located in its historical context; its complex references to the Chinese traditional thought, to Marx and Western philosophy, but also to modern sciences (quantum physics), are explored and documented. A new Mao thus emerges, a Mao whose radical acts are grounded in a thick texture of philosophical reflections. Allinson's Mao is indispensable for everybody who wants to understand not just Mao but the concatenation of philosophy and politics that characterized the twentieth century."
Written by a distinguished philosopher/ethicist who spent nearly three decades in Chinese society, this ground-breaking book reveals for the first time the development of the inner thinking of the man who initiated the transformation of the global face of China in the twentieth and twenty-first century. What was the relationship of Zhuangzi to Maoism? What role did early Chinese philosophy playin the development of Maoism? What was the relationship of the history of George Washington and Napoleon to Maoism? Did Mao read plays written by Oscar Wilde? Was Mao's thought more similar to Nietzsche or Sartre? How did Mao alter the dialectic of Hegel? How did the Marxism of Mao challenge and deviate from Soviet Marxism? What new ideas did Mao bring to Marxism? Why would Mao not have been stunned by China's rise to global economic power under Xi Jinping? Was there a link between Mao's early training in Western philosophy, his interpretations of both Western and Chinese philosophy and hislater social and political policies? This investigation into the mind of Mao explores his lifelong philosophical journey and both uncovers the pre-Marxist foundations to his Marxist thought and probes the original texts of his famous Marxist writings to discover the Chinese sources of his contribution to Marxism.