Mao ‘Little Red Book’ Exhibit Spurs NY Times To Hail China For Better ‘Taste’ Than US In the 1960s

By Tim Graham | November 15, 2014 | 5:16 PM EST

The New York Times reported a scandal when a collection of Nazi memorabilia caused a senior Human Rights Watch analyst to be suspended in 2009. But collecting Red China Mao Zedong memorabilia is apparently much more charming.

On Friday, Times culture reporter William “Biff” Grimes promoted “Quotations of Chairman Mao: 50th Anniversary Exhibition, 1964-2014,” at the Grolier Club, displaying “books and propaganda material from the collection of Justin G. Schiller, an antiquarian book seller.”

At least the headline on Mao’s Little Red Book was “Mandated to Be a Best Seller.” Grimes perverted a Christian term and called it “The catechism of the Cultural Revolution,” and never specified that this ten-year event cost an estimated 1.5 million Chinese lives. Mao kitsch is “intriguing,” even when American heads are under Chinese feet:

The prose of the “Quotations” was prosaic — “The masses have a potentially inexhaustible enthusiasm for socialism,” one typical excerpt begins….The book held sway as a symbol, not a program of ideas, which is why it lent itself so readily to propaganda uses. Bold posters showed crowds holding the book aloft, their faces radiant with joy. At home, citizens could pour water from a “Little Red Book” carafe, wake up to a “Little Red Book” alarm clock with a soldier’s arm waving the book back and forth, and watch as their children played with rubber “Little Red Book” dolls.
For detail please visit here