Sarah Paine — How Mao conquered China (lecture & interview)

Listen to this episode from Dwarkesh Podcast on Spotify. Third and final episode in the Paine trilogy!Chinese history is full of warlords constantly challenging the capital. How could Mao not only stay in power for decades, but not even face any insurgency?And how did Mao go from military genius to peacetime disaster - the patriotic hero who inflicted history’s worst human catastrophe on China? How can someone shrewd enough to win a civil war outnumbered 5 to 1 decide "let's have peasants make iron in their backyards" and "let's kill all the birds"?In her lecture and our Q&A, we cover the first nationwide famine in Chinese history; Mao's lasting influence on other insurgents; broken promises to minorities and peasantry; and what Taiwan means.Thanks so much to @Substack for running this in-person event!Note that Sarah is doing an AMA over the next couple days on Youtube; see the pinned comment.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.SponsorToday’s episode is brought to you by Scale AI. Scale partners with the U.S. government to fuel America’s AI advantage through their data foundry. Scale recently introduced Defense Llama, Scale's latest solution available for military personnel. With Defense Llama, military personnel can harness the power of AI to plan military or intelligence operations and understand adversary vulnerabilities.If you’re interested in learning more on how Scale powers frontier AI capabilities, go to https://scale.com/dwarkesh. Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe