Exactly! I'd studied the Cultural Revolution on and off since 7th grade, but the enormity of it never really got through to me until my Chinese Painting courses, where we were constantly reading commentaries on famous pieces by later artists, and the professor was like, "So while we still have an idea of what such-and-such looked like, it was destroyed in the CR after having survived through six centuries." Ugh.
That is just horrid about your grandfather's possessions. Were they in any way documented? Because they're probably still kicking around in the art/antiques world and if you can prove that they were yours, you have the legal right to get them back (just like with works stolen during the Holocaust).
My ancestors fought in the Civil War, and one of them served as an Aide-de-Camp to General Grant. Sent letters to my g.g. grandmother describing Grant, camp life, battles, everything. My grandmother loaned them to a museum for someone's research and lo and behold! they "disappeared." One of my goals in life is to track them down and return them to my family.
I've read Wild Swans several times and really enjoy it, but I was hoping her Mao bio would be more scholarly. Like you, I found it to be pretty tabloid-rag in tone. Not that there's anything wrong with bringing that sort of thing into the light if it's true, but I was disappointed by the lack of concrete sourcing. I can certainly see Mao abusing power in those ways, but I can also see how someone angry enough at him (or just looking for a little amusement) would make up all sorts of horrid things to say now that he's safely dead, just for the hell of it, because there's no way to verify it or trace it back to its source.
I think Zhou gets cut a lot of slack because he was so instrumental during Nixon's visits in the 70s. But anyone who survived for that long as high up the chain as he did, I still had to have been pretty culpable, overall.
no subject
That is just horrid about your grandfather's possessions. Were they in any way documented? Because they're probably still kicking around in the art/antiques world and if you can prove that they were yours, you have the legal right to get them back (just like with works stolen during the Holocaust).
My ancestors fought in the Civil War, and one of them served as an Aide-de-Camp to General Grant. Sent letters to my g.g. grandmother describing Grant, camp life, battles, everything. My grandmother loaned them to a museum for someone's research and lo and behold! they "disappeared." One of my goals in life is to track them down and return them to my family.
I've read Wild Swans several times and really enjoy it, but I was hoping her Mao bio would be more scholarly. Like you, I found it to be pretty tabloid-rag in tone. Not that there's anything wrong with bringing that sort of thing into the light if it's true, but I was disappointed by the lack of concrete sourcing. I can certainly see Mao abusing power in those ways, but I can also see how someone angry enough at him (or just looking for a little amusement) would make up all sorts of horrid things to say now that he's safely dead, just for the hell of it, because there's no way to verify it or trace it back to its source.
I think Zhou gets cut a lot of slack because he was so instrumental during Nixon's visits in the 70s. But anyone who survived for that long as high up the chain as he did, I still had to have been pretty culpable, overall.