Halliday has written or edited eight books, including a long interview with the U.S. film-maker Douglas Sirk. In addition, he and his wife, Jung Chang, with whom he lives in Notting Hill, West London, researched and wrote a biography of Mao Zedong, Mao: the Unknown Story. The book was highly praised in the popular press, and also elicited some controversy.[2][3]The Sydney Morning Herald reported that while few commentators disputed it, "some of the world's most eminent scholars of modern Chinese history" had referred to the book as "a gross distortion of the records."[4] Some scholars offered measured praise of the range of scholarship,[5][6][7] but more prevalent criticism on factual accuracy, methodology, and use of sources.[8][9][10] Historian Rebecca Karl summarized its negative reception, writing, "According to many reviewers of Mao: the Unknown Story, the story told therein is unknown because Chang and Halliday substantially fabricated it or exaggerated it into existence."[11]
Bibliography
Sirk on Sirk: Interviews with Jon Halliday (Secker & Warburg 1971), ISBN0-436-09924-1
^Goodman, David S.G. (September 2006). "Mao and The Da Vinci Code: conspiracy, narrative and history". The Pacific Review. 19 (3): 361, 362, 363, 375, 376, 380, 381. doi:10.1080/09512740600875135. S2CID144521610.
^Benton, Gregor; Steven Tsang (January 2006). "The Portrayal of Opportunism, Betrayal, and Manipulation in Mao's Rise to Power". The China Journal (55): 96, 109. doi:10.2307/20066121. JSTOR20066121. S2CID144181404.
^Cheek, Timothy (January 2006). "The New Number One Counter-Revolutionary Inside the Party: Academic Biography as Mass Criticism". The China Journal (55): 110, 118.
^Gao, Mobo (2008). The Battle for China's Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution. London: Pluto Press. p. 11. ISBN978-0-7453-2780-8.
^Li, J. (2010), "Review of Was Mao Really a Monster? The Academic Response to Chang and Halliday's Mao: The Unknown Story, by G. Benton & L. Chun" in China Review International, 17(4), 408–412