As in her bestselling 1991 memoir Wild Swans, Chang uses a gripping and emotional personal story to draw Western readers into the history of China, a country in which her books are still banned and which she is only permitted to visit for 15 days a year, following the publication of her damning 2005 Mao biography (co-written with her husband Jon Halliday). It is that proximity to the big decisions that makes the book worth reading. The historical figures making those decisions do so because of human failings, or wants. That is a valuable corrective to the current fashion to emphasize structures and processes over human agency, although at times Chang takes it goes too far. In this way Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister avoids the pitfalls of polemic, but doesn’t bring the intimacy of memoir. The result is a fascinating, if episodic, trip through China’s twentieth century. Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister, written in a compulsive style that sweeps the story along, is much the fullest account of their remarkable lives available in English… The sisters make a great story told with considerable sympathy for them... The warts-and-all portrait of "the Father of the Republic" is a welcome corrective to

And in Big Sister, Little Sister, Red SisterJung Chang documents their lives with such incredible intimacy and detail as to almost welcome them into our lives. The feats that they accomplished prove, through Chang’s deft writer’s hand, to be more exhilarating a read than the best political thriller. I get that this is supposed to be a review for Jung Chang's book, but given the content (and context) I feel that a comparison between the two books are necessary. Seagrave also wrote a bio on the infamous Empress Dowager Cixi/Tzu Hsi Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China which I also read and enjoyed. Chang has also written a bio on her, Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China but I have not read it so I can not compare these. To say more would turn this review into a summary of the entire book but it’s hard to resist when its narrative proved to be so utterly compelling, even down to the few brief mentions of Mao as he existed in the shadows during the days of power of Sun and Chiang Kai-shek.The Soong sisters were an extraordinary trio… Jung Chang has shown, in books such as Wild Swans, her instinct for a compelling story, and that instinct stands her in good stead here as she weaves her way through the complex history of China … Well worth reading…” (Rana Mitter Sunday Times) In telling the story of Ching-ling, Ei-ling and Mai-ling Chang wants to provide a window into the politics of the period and shine a light on some uncomfortable truths. The writing style

Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is a gripping story of love, war, intrigue, bravery, glamour and betrayal, which takes us on a sweeping journey… a group biography that is by turns intimate and epic, Jung Chang reveals the lives of three extraordinary women who helped shape twentieth-century China. Southern StarMy mother inspired me to write Wild Swans and she’s been so supportive of all my work. She lived under Chiang Kai-shek – she was a student activist, fighting his regime – and through Mao’s rule. She’s 88 now and living in China.

Chang seamlessly chronicles the lives and marriages of the Soong sisters in this captivating triple biography. . . . This juicy tale will satisfy readers interested in politics, world affairs, and family dynamics.”— Publishers Weekly Big Sister, Ei-ling, became Chiang’s unofficial main adviser – and made herself one of China’s richest women. The People’s Republic of China celebrated its 70th anniversary on 1 October but it’s been a turbulent year, with the protests in Hong Kong … The main subjects of this intensely engaging historical biography are the three daughters of Charlie Soong: Ei-ling, Ching-ling, and May-ling. These three women left as great a mark on, and were as influential in the transformation of, China as any of China’s more famous male leaders (all of whom also play a key role in this book), and here Jung Chang brings them into the historical limelight where they belong. Ei-ling's husband, said to be one of the richest men in China, served as China’s premiere for two years. Ei-ling has the only children of the 3 sisters: two sons and a daughter, who served the family in various capacities and Louis, a paranoid TX oilman who married an American actress and produced the sole heir to the Kung-Soong wealth, now in his 70's with no children. Ei-ling is the one who brought Chaing Kai-shek (who married May-Ling) into the family's orbit.May-ling, Little Sister, spent a decade studying and living in the US before returning home and marrying Chiang Kai-shek during his rise to power. Red Sister Ching-ling, by far the most exciting of the three, was a powerful communist thinker. In her youth she was married to Sun Yat-sen, father of revolutionary China, and later in life she became the vice-chair of Chairman Mao Zedong. Once upon a time, a wealthy man lived in Shanghai with his devoutly Christian wife, with whom he had three sons and three daughters. The girls grew up to be educated, cultured and stylish, and their family’s money and status attracted many aspiring suitors. In an era when China was experiencing significant political upheaval, each sister married an influential man and secured her position at the top of society. Their selection of husbands appeared to crystallize an essential aspect of each woman’s character, as summed up by an oft-repeated saying: “One loved money, one loved power and one loved China.” This is a book about the three most famous sisters in Chinese history: the Soong sisters. They were international celebrities: highly educated, politically pivotal and ridiculously rich. They embodied the changes and tensions of early twentieth century China as the country set its political engine-room to warp speed 9: in a little over 30 years the country went from empire, to parliamentary democracy, to warlordism, to quasi-fascist dictatorship to foreign occupation and civil war before becoming a totalitarian one party communist state. Who were these sisters? A remarkable story of war, communism and espionage related with nuanced sympathy... The lives of the three Song sisters – the subjects of Jung Chang’s spirited new book – are more than worthy of an operatic plot. Julia Lovell, Guardian

By necessity the story is not only about the three sisters. It is as well about the “programme-setters and history-changers” that the author has also researched thoroughly over the last few years. The book also stood out for me in its slightly left-field take on some well known events. So for example the “warlord period” of Chinese history – broadly speaking the 1920s – is for Chang an unfairly maligned episode: while there were multiple armies across the country all fighting each other, they weren’t really trying that hard – “Fatalities were low” – and “At the first drop of rain, fighting stopped and the umbrellas were opened, turning the battlegrounds into fields of colourful mushrooms.” Presumably if it had rained all the time no-one would have died at all. Double plusses This is what makes this book such an enormous success: that it reads like a biographical novel, with political change at the forefront and character narratives existing upstage. Each chapter focusses on a shift in power that is equal parts personal and political, and the Soong sisters are always there but rarely at the forefront, at least until the book’s final third. Sun Yat-sen’s sheet inspection is particularly interesting. I have come across him in other books where he is presented as a slightly otherworldly sage-like politician who was a key inspiration for the creation of post-empire republican China but refused to sully himself with the direct exercise of political power.Charlie Soong being very forward thinking sent each of his daughters to an American boarding school at a young age. He made influential friends who were then introduced to his daughters. The sisters were very intelligent and interested in the politics of their country. They also believed that women should be man’s equal and the three sisters all rose to positions of influence. Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is a monumental work . . . Its three fairy-tale heroines, poised between east and west, spanned three centuries, two continents and a revolution, with consequences that reverberate, perhaps now more than ever, in all our lives to this day.” —The Spectator