The book debunks all of the theories floated about Mao from the point where he was installed by the USSR and then overtakes his mentor Josef Stalin (as well as Adolph Hitler) in murder putting the death toll at 70 million.
The high number of people killed had something to do with the fact that Mao enjoyed his "work" with public executions, which even his European counterparts would not attempt. He was quite willing to sacrifice half of China's population for the ultimate goal of world "revolution", translate "domination".
While Mao was starving millions in the fifties to gain resources to build his nuclear weapons he himself was living in lavish palaces with countless women as sex slaves.
The original Long March was not quite the marathon he made it out to be, at least not for Mao. He made it on a litter carried by bearers, and his passage was facilitated by his Nationalist enemies.
York reminds us, "In China the picture of Mao graces all of the currency and the gateway to the Forbidden City. Education at schools refers to Mao in terms greater than we allow God in the west."
The scariest thing is to see the number of people in the west who laud Mao. Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau visited China and praised Mao, never once mentioning the slaughter.
I wonder how soon we will start to think of "chairman Mao" as the paragon of slaughter. Just when will we realize, that to the 1.3 billion Chinese our honouring the mass murderer of their people is a great insult?