Sometimes a Book Is Indeed Just a Book. But When?

By ELISABETH BUMILLER | The New York Times
January 23, 2006
White House Letter

When President Bush met with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in the Oval Office this month, the talk turned to Ms. Merkel's childhood under Communism, then wandered to the subject of Mr. Bush's latest bedtime reading: "Mao: The Unknown Story," an 814-page biography that presents the Chinese dictator as another Hitler or Stalin.

Participants in the meeting say Mr. Bush spoke glowingly of the book, a 10-year project by Jung Chang, the author of the hugely successful memoir "Wild Swans," and her husband, Jon Halliday, a British historian. "Mao" has been at the top of best-seller lists in Britain and Germany, and was published to mixed reviews late last year in the United States.

The book might at first seem an odd choice for Mr. Bush, whose taste in biography, like that of other American presidents, runs to previous occupants of the Oval Office. But it is not so surprising given that "Mao: The Unknown Story" has been embraced by the right as a searing indictment of Communism.

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