Mao the unknown story - Jung Chang (1 Viewer)

[xinxin89]

I'm looking at examing the methologies used by the author in her portrayal of Mao and how her conclusions r influenced by her context etc. i've been talking to my teacher, examninign Mao is really broad, so i should pick on an aspect of Mao to focus on in relation to Chang's book.

My problem is that, exactly liek my teacher said, Mao is really broad, therefore I have no clue what exactly about Mao that i wanna focus on. Can anyone help?

 

[Triangulum]

You could try looking at the part of Mao's life that had the greatest impact on Jung - the Cultural Revolution, during which her parents were denounced. That would probably be the most obvious area to focus on, since you could examine how her and her parents' experiences directly inform and shape her history.

Another area in which Jung differs significantly from orthodox scholarship is how he and the Red Army behaved towards the residents of provincial China during the initial occupation of the land that would become the Soviets and during the Long March. She described them as 'brigands', while many scholars believe that they treated the peasants extremely well. That could also be an area to look at - while it isn't as directly related to her context, it shows very clearly how significantly different her views are.

 

[xinxin89]

thank u so much for ur help so far - i was thinking, what about just looking at whether Mao did much good for the chinese people as a whole, like did he raise public morale etc, and what Chang says about it and why, would that still be too broad?

also say if i do choose to focus on the cultural revolution - then i guess my inquiry question would be something like "Assess the impact of Mao's Cultural Revolution policies on Chinese society at the time." However, i do think this is straying away from what I originally intended, which was to use Chang's book as the central focus.

 

[Triangulum]

I don't think there's any such thing as too broad - you should base your decision on what you think you can manage. I don't think whether he did much good for the Chinese people is necessarily too large to be manageable, although you might want to constrict it to a specific time period.

If you want to keep the focus on Jung's book, you could try an inquiry question along the lines of 'How does Jung Chang's Mao: The Unknown Story portray Mao Zedong [or Mao Zedong's impact on ordinary Chinese, or whatever you want]? How is her history influenced by her personal context?'

 

[xinxin89]

I was thinking of somethin like this "what is the role of Chang's book in the scholarship debate of Mao"?

How's that? would that be too general?

 

[mr_brightside]

"Wild Swans" inspired my Extension History work. I <3 that book.

 

[xinxin89]

ok i'm finding my previous inquiery statement too broad, anyone got any suggestions on how to narrow it down?

 

[xinxin89]

I've sorta decided on my focus question "Evaluate the impact of jung chang's "Mao the unknown story" with regard to the controversial debate of the myth of mao". Does anyone think the wording of the question might not cover all the points of examning the author's context, comparing to other historians' works, its reception etc?

 

[miss-smexy]

I'm looking at examing the methologies used by the author in her portrayal of Mao and how her conclusions r influenced by her context etc. i've been talking to my teacher, examninign Mao is really broad, so i should pick on an aspect of Mao to focus on in relation to Chang's book.

My problem is that, exactly liek my teacher said, Mao is really broad, therefore I have no clue what exactly about Mao that i wanna focus on. Can anyone help?

You probably already have, but check out threads on 'wild swans' and macquarie notes on this. It talks heaps on the author's (lack of) textual integrity. It might help.