Miranda Seymour Quotes
It's time that we gave our children what we owe them, which is a richer understanding of the past and of the importance of all that Germany has done for England and that England has done for Germany.
Seymour, Miranda. Noble Endeavours: The Life of Two Countries, England and Germany, in Many Stories. Simon & Schuster, 2013.
India had just recently gained its independence from Britain.
Although, on sever occasions Mao tried to reach out to the United States, the fact that he was leading a communist movement and Chiang Kai-shek, our recognized ruler of China hated Mao caused his overtures to be rebuffed. American military leaders knew very little about China and our intelligence was almost non-existent. They assumed that he was under the control of Russia and Joseph Stalin when in fact, the Russians wanted to oust Mao for not following Stalin’s communist orthodoxy. They succeeded in firing him as head of the party and replacing him with a committee of more loyal communists. Not only did the US rebuff Mau’s outreach attempts, but American money and military material financed 6 different military campaigns by Chiang to exterminate Mao and his communists.
None succeeded as the vast majority of the peasants supported Mao and his troops and provided support and information in Chiang’s attempts. Some historians believe we “bet on the wrong horse”.
Miranda Jane Seymour is an English literary critic, novelist, and biographer. The lives she wrote about included those of Robert Graves and Mary Shelley.