Yes, Mao is terrible, but the authors are not too much better.

The authors are in the business of writing best-selling books, not history, or any real form of scholarship. The ways they selectively presented and intentionally misintepreted evidence are oftentimes childish. Their theory in historical explanation is simple: 1/ Mao was responsible for every bad thing happend to the Chinese people (and many others) during the time he lived on this planet, and 2/ all other people were just dummies being manipulated by Mao in any way he wanted (and this includes not only the Chinese people, who struggled, suffered, and sacrificed for their ideals, but also foreign leaders of all ideological persuations).

Even evil tyrants...

Even evil tyrants are not unidimensional people. Even evil tyrants have some accomplishments to their credit, in some cases, quite significant accomplishments. A balanced historical approach raises all issues and lets the reader decide for himself or herself. That is what intellectual enquiry is all about. There is so much that is uncontrovertibly bad about Mao that I don't think many people would argue the end justified the means or that all his accomplishments could not have been brought about in a less brutal way. We don't need another book on Mao to tell us that. But it would be useful to have an intellectual dialogue, even within one's self, on the interplay of these forces - on the good and the bad -- instead of denying any good exists. The authors' "ram it down your throat" approach never gets to that discussion. It doesn't even think it is worth having. The book is intellectually immature. Pity. So much effort with a monumental result that in the end just isn't reliable. Better to go to Philip Short.