Reviews (2)

Norman Bethune - A Life of Service, Compassion & Excitement
This is a book that should be on the essential reading list for those planning a career in medicine (surgery). It is truly inspiring, and it provides an interesting history of the early years of thoracic surgery, transfusion medicine, and humanitarian committment. I recommend those who have the opportunity to visit the Bethune Peace Hospital in China, about a two hour drive from Beijing. The Bethune Museum there is wonderful.

A story of Curage
I remember this story from my mother reading it to me a s a child and again reading it as a highschool student. I gave me hope that one person can make a difference. That we can do things to help people not for fame and fortune but because people need our help and we have the expertise to help ease their pain and suffering.

Norman bethume was such a man and his story needs to be told again and again. I highly recommend it to anyone who values the efforts of individulas and the love of community.

Chester ... Read more

Book Description

Three of Norman Bethune's close Montreal friends and associates from the Thirties collaborated to write this informal portrait of Bethune during a critical and fascinating period of his life.

Soon after Bethune's 1928 return from the United States to Canada, Montreal fell into the grip of the Depression. His research soon showed a correlation between worsening economic conditions and an increase in the number of tuberculosis victims in the city. Like many other intellectuals and professionals, he was drawn towards the political left as he tried to understand the basis for the economic crisis. These experiences led him to Russia, to Spain and finally to China, each journey strengthening his growing political convictions.

The authors of Bethune: The Montreal Years were all involved with Norman Bethune and his work during this period. Each provides a unique personal portrait of Bethune, his friends and his work, and together they convey their great affection and respect for this distinguished Canadian
... Read more

Book Description

Comrade Norman Bethune, a member of the Communist Party of Canada, was a world-famous chest surgeon. In 1937, when the War of Resistance Against Japan broke out, he was sent to China by the Communist Parties of Canada and the United States. He arrived early in 1938. In the spring of the same year he reached Yenan and was received by the great leader of the Chinese people, Chairman Mao. Soon afterwards, he went to the base area behind the enemy lines as Medical Advisor to the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei Military Area. In those hard war years he shared the joys and sorrows of the people and armymen in the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei Border Region. He adopted the cause of the Chinese people’s liberation as his own. With selfless enthusiasm in his work, and imbued with the great spirit of internationalism and communism, he made a glorious contribution to the cause of the Chinese people’s liberation. Unfortunately, he contracted blood poisoning while operating on wounded soldiers, and to our great sorrow, after all measures taken to cure him had proved futile, died on November 12, 1939 at Yellow Stone Village in Tanghsien County, Hopei Province.

On December 21, 1939, Chairman Mao wrote the brilliant essay In Memory of Norman Bethune calling on the Chinese people to learn from Comrade Bethune. In 1940, to perpetuate his memory, the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei Military Area renamed the Model Hospital set up by him the "Bethune International Peace Hospital."

The great internationalist fighter Comrade Bethune lives forever in the hearts of millions upon millions of the Chinese people. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

I love this book and so would any fan of Bethune but ....
"The true artist lets himself go .... He rises to the light of every day like a giant leviathon of the deep ...." Bethune was a gifted writer as well as an artist and this book has ample evidence of both. It also shows his main strength was as a surgeon -- an innovative, battlefront, MASH surgeon. Imagine Hawkeye Pierce if he could write as well as he could gab and you have Bethune with the original Mobile Army Support Hospital. Who would not love this book? Anti-communists, anti-artists, anti-Maoists, and those who judge Bethune as more of a sinner than a saint. That would be a lot of people! But I come from Norman Bethune's hometown, I teach at Norman Bethune's high school, and I have been inspired by Bethune the artist and humanitarian. This book, The Politics Of Passion, gives great evidence of the Bethune we all love -- his writing and painting. This non-fiction book by Larry Hannant should serve as a good source for new artistic works inspired by the man who was the most famous whiteman in the world and who remains the most famous Canadian. Reading this book makes you want to do something for Bethune, to erect some kind of monument to his memory. They should name the high school in his old hometown after him! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Enjoyable biography of a Canadian Communist in China
I had vaguely heard of Bethune as a Canadian who was a hero in China but underappreciated in Canada. Since things relating to the history of China are a current interest, I thought I'd give the book a chance. To say that Norman Bethune was extraordinary would be putting it mildly. This man was a well-respected doctor, inventor, lecturer, and lover. He possessed many eccentricities, spending (and never saving) every penny he received, on both himself and the underprivilidged. He would always challenge people's views, even if he agreed with them personally. I enjoyed this biography for one major reason. It was meticulously researched, as the author conducted an immesurable number of interviews, and where interviews weren't enough to get inside the mind of Norman Bethune, Stewart relied on diary entries and (most interesting of all) his letters to his wife, whom he married and divorced twice. The lengthiest portion of the book is spent on his sojourn in China during Mao Zedong's ruthless tenure as omnipotent ruler of China, wearing peasant sandles while operating on the Communist guerellas fighting both Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Army and invaders from Japan. An avowed communist, he is a hero to Marxists in China, if relatively unknown outside the country. ... Read more