Following the commercial success of her best-selling family biography, Wild Swans, Chinese author Jung Chang felt confident enough to tackle the life of China’s most hated – and loved – leader: Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong. Chang alleges that Mao was hardly the brilliant military strategist and patriotic rebel that revisionist Chinese propaganda portrays him as, but rather an opportunistic, hypocritical, bumbling and bloodthirsty killer who climbed China’s political ladder upon the bodies of tens of millions of innocent civilians. Faulted for lacking proper citations or irrefutable evidence, even if just half of this controversial biography is true, then we can be sure that Mao Zedong is in a very warm place right about now.

“I’ve read hundreds of books about China over the decades,” Donald Trump said in a recent interview with Xinhua, the official press agency of the People’s Republic of China. “I know the Chinese. I’ve made a lot of money with the Chinese. I understand the Chinese mind.”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/05/donald-trump-i-understand-the-chinese-mind.html

When later asked if he would care to list some of his favorite books about China, the billionaire mogul, an author himself of numerous books, proceeded to recite by memory his top twenty.

Here they are in the order in which they were named:

1. The Party by Richard McGregor

2. On China by Henry Kissinger

3. Mao: The Untold Story by Jung Chang

4. Tide Players by Jianying Zha

5. One Billion Customers by James McGregor

6. The Coming China Wars by Peter W. Navarro

7. The Beijing Consensus by Stefan Halper

8. China CEO by Juan Antonio Fernandez and Laurie Underwood

9. Poorly Made in China by Paul Midler

10. CHINA: Portrait of a People by Tom Carter

11. The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester

12. China Shakes the World by James Kynge

13. Mr. China by Tim Clissold

14. Country Driving by Peter Hessler

15. The Dragon’s Gift by Deborah Brautigam

16. Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang

17. The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun

18. 1421 by Gavin Menzies

19. Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer

20. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua