Selected as a Book of the Week by Jason Fulford "Through this lens, Kooiker’s pictures remind us of one of the most famous photo shoots in history — Chairman Mao swimming in the Yangtze River in 1966. At the time, there was opposition to Mao within the Communist Party. Mao was in his early 70s. He left Beijing, to devise a plan, and made his next appearance calmly floating down the river. His swim was well documented, and the photographs were distributed throughout the country. The connotation was a sly piece of propaganda — that Mao was healthy, relaxed and confident in this moment of possible anarchy." — Jason Fulford from the
Book of the Week feature on photo-eye Blog.
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