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AI Summary
- Mao achieved unprecedented control despite facing warlord challenges, remaining in power for decades without significant insurgency despite initial military inferiority
- Mao's peacetime policies were catastrophic: the Great Leap Forward caused history's worst human-made famine through forced agricultural collectivization and disastrous economic decisions
- Sarah Paine examines Mao's influence on other insurgents, broken promises to minorities and peasantry, and Taiwan's significance in Chinese political history