The difficulty of not falling into the trap of the "biographical utopia" that confers perfect cohesion on such or such a destiny after the fact is exacerbated by the Chinese historical tradition and its distinction between "official history" and "indiscreet history": this is even truer when a personage as important as Mao Tse-tung is concerned, who, as of 1936, was paying attention to building his image. The great progress in the knowledge of Mao Tse-tung’s writings and speeches, driven by Stuart Schram among others, and the liberating shock produced by Simon Leys’ works (Les Habits Neufs du President Mao) and Li Zhisui’s (La Vie Privée du Président Mao), as well as China’s political evolution in the last thirty years have made it possible to bring Mao’s biography out of hagiography and make Mao a subject of history. It is now possible to come to grips with the life of this often monstrous despot by placing him in his historical field.