Edgar Snow (1905–1972)

Firstly, this is a massive book, although the small format and the thin paper of the paperback edition belie this. In all of 750 pages, this iconic work, by one of the few persons familiar with China and its leaders, from the 1930s onwards, deals with the situation before the Cultural Revolution. The author has tried to go beneath the surface and pry out the 'reality' of the state of the country, the collective farms, agriculture, manufacturing, political mobilisation, and so on. On the whole the picture built up is fairly positive, and everywhere the people seem to have not just reconciled themselves to the relative regimentation, but positively owned it as the road to a more equal and prosperous nation. However, there does seem to be tendency to gloss over the negatives as minor errors in implementation, rather than as the horrifying and unconscionable gross excesses that we have come to see them as. When things were going so much better in the 1960s, it is all the more puzzling that Mao upset the whole trajectory with such top-down and irrational strategies as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Perhaps the most interesting are some of the later chapters that deal with international geopolitical matters, such as the one on the India-China border conflict, which is recommended to get a handle on how most of the world thinks about it. Also fascinating is the essay on Vietnam and Indo-China, where the utter confusion in the American strategies and responses is what strikes the reader most. An iconic, unique, and necessary book to ground and improve one's understanding of this enigmatic continent! A minor grumble is that the book is based on the author's various trips from the late 1930s onwards, this one mainly in the 1960s,but because the footnotes add material from the 1970s, it is sometimes difficult to make out the chronology and validity of some of the author's assessments and views. This volume can be considered a continuation of his earlier work of the1930s, Red Star over China (1938, 1969).… (mere)

One of the iconic works on the Chinese revolution, the writer spends a few months behind the red lines in northwest China during 1936-37, where he meets and interviews such luminaries as Mao Tse Tung himself. What is impressive is the sheer number of personalities the author is able to meet and interview, and the short biographies that he has been able to compile as an appendix. Of course, at this length of time, the average reader cannot be expected to get so involved in the personae, especially given the utter unfamiliarity and the multiplicity of the Chinese names and pseudonyms. Also, most of them come out sounding ever so reasonable and rational, giving no inkling of the future disasters caused by, for instance, Mao's disastrous policies. The present edition is dated 1968, so the author has seen the development of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.… (mere)