曾经拜访过一位间接认识的教授想请他做推荐人，他到地下室藏书间翻了这一本旧书送给我，让我看完写个书评给他，再谈。
我看了第一页就放弃了，看不懂，后来倒是借给别人数次，据说是一本很著名的关于老毛的传记。
"Ross Terrill, a China specialist and Research Associate at Harvard's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, is the author of nine books. Raised in rural Australia, he graduated in history and political science from the University of Melbourne in 1962 and served in the Australian Army. He took a PH.D. in political science at Harvard in 1970, where his thesis on the philosophy of R. H. Tawney was awarded the Sumner Prize and was later published as Socialism As Fellowship.
While teaching at Harvard on political thought, Chinese politics, and international affairs, he wrote 800,000,000: The Real China, The Future of China: After Mao, Flowers on an Iron Tree: Five Cities of China, and the original edition of Mao. A decade a contributing editor of The Atlantic Monthly he won the National Magazine Award for Reporting Excellence and the George Polk Memorial Award for Outstanding Magazine Reporting for writings on China."
