Mao Zedong (1st of 5)

As part of the BBC "Who Runs Your World" season, "Off the Shelf" features a compelling new biography of the dictator Chairman Mao. So expansive is the study that our five part reading will focus on what is often the most intriguing part of a dictator’s life -- how did he get to power? Skill, luck, treachery, or plain old destiny? He was born in an ancient province. He doted on his mother, hated his father and married the first of four wives aged eighteen. His formative years are traced in this the first part of "Mao: The Unknown Story", by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday.