http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/23/politics/23letter.html?_r=1
マクレラン報道官によると、ブッシュ大統領は先週ローラ夫人にこの本をプレゼントされて以来毎日ベッドタイムで読みふけり、この度読み終わったところとのこと。彼はこの本にいたく感銘を受けたようで、ドイツのメルケル首相との会談でも『マオ』のことが話題になったという。
Asked why Mr. Bush liked the book, Mr. McClellan said he would find out, then reported back on Friday that Mr. Bush had told him that "Mao" "really shows how brutal a tyrant he was" and that "he was much more brutal than people assumed."
Mr. Bush also said, Mr. McClellan recounted, that "millions upon millions were killed because of his policies." On that score, the book is both sweeping and specific, with a first chapter that begins with this sentence: "Mao Zedong, who for decades held absolute power over the lives of one-quarter of the world's population, was responsible for well over 70 million deaths in peacetime, more than any other 20th-century leader."
American scholars say that Mr. Bush was no doubt drawn to the narrative but also to a book that is in effect an argument for the president's second-term agenda of spreading democracy around the world.
小泉首相は多分読んでないだろうなあ（まあ読んでても表立って言わないか）。その意味では、引用した箇所の最後の一文に端的に現れているように、欧米におけるこの本の出版がもつ政治的な意味は、日本でのそれに比べてはるかに大きいのかもしれない。
