A true honor to speak with Jung Chang.She is the author of Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (sold 15+ million copies worldwide) and Mao: The Unknown Story.We discuss:- what it was like growing up during the Cultural Revolution as the daughter of a denounced official- why the CCP continues to worship the biggest mass murderer in human history.- how exactly Communist totalitarianism was able to subjugate a billion people- why Chinese leaders like Xi and Deng who suffered from the Cultural Revolution don't condemn Mao- how Mao starved and killed 40 million people during The Great Leap Forward in order to exchange food for Soviet weaponsWild Swans is the most moving book I've ever read. It was a real privilege to speak with its author.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.Timestamps(00:00:00) - Growing up during Cultural Revolution(00:15:58) - Could officials have overthrown Mao?(00:34:09) - Great Leap Forward(00:48:12) - Modern support of Mao(01:03:24) - Life as peasant(01:21:30) - Psychology of communist society Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe
No persons identified in this episode.
This episode hasn't been transcribed yet
Help us prioritize this episode for transcription by upvoting it.
Popular episodes get transcribed faster
Other episodes from Dwarkesh Podcast
Transcribed and ready to explore now
Ilya Sutskever – We're moving from the age of scaling to the age of research
25 Nov 2025
Dwarkesh Podcast
Satya Nadella — How Microsoft is preparing for AGI
12 Nov 2025
Dwarkesh Podcast
Sarah Paine – How Russia sabotaged China's rise
31 Oct 2025
Dwarkesh Podcast
Andrej Karpathy — AGI is still a decade away
17 Oct 2025
Dwarkesh Podcast
Nick Lane – Life as we know it is chemically inevitable
10 Oct 2025
Dwarkesh Podcast
Some thoughts on the Sutton interview
04 Oct 2025
Dwarkesh Podcast