One member of my family has a very large Andy Warhol painting of Mao on the living room wall.
How long will it remain there?
Mao, for five decades, was the symbol of utopia and the great socialist future. Warhol was right in the mainstream of Liberalism when he painted his beatific idol, with original serigraph versions running into the thousands of hand-signed copies. What are those prints worth now?
The problem arises with the authoritative biography of Mao by Chang and Halliday. This book is widely reviewed and even more widely respected. Mao, as history now sees him, ranks among the most horrific mass murderers of the Second Millennium. Estimates of his slaughter range up to 70 million people. It is hard to believe anyone wants to look at the face of an all-time champion of mass murder.