"Mao: The Unknown Story" became a best-seller, with UK sales alone reaching 60,000 in six months. Academics and commentators wrote reviews ranging from praise to criticism. Professor Richard Baum said that it had to be "taken very seriously as the most thoroughly researched and richly documented piece of synthetic scholarship" on Mao. On the other hand, "The Sydney Morning Herald" reported that while few commentators "disput the subject," "some of the world's most eminent scholars of modern Chinese history" had referred to the book as "a gross distortion of the records."