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-During the summer of 1972 -- a few short months after Nixon's legendary visit to China -- master historian Barbara W. Tuchman made her own trip to that country, spending six weeks in eleven cities and a variety of rural settlements. The resulting reportage was one of the first evenhanded portrayals of Chinese culture that Americans had ever read. Tuchman's observations capture the people as they lived, from workers in the city and provincial party bosses to farmers, scientists, and educators. The author demonstrates the breadth and scope of her experience in discussing the alleviation of famine, misery, and exploitation; the distortion of cultural and historical inheritances into ubiquitous slogans; news media, schools, housing, and transportation; and Chairman Mao's techniques for reasserting the Revolution. This edition also includes Tuchman's fascinating essay -If Mao Had Come to Washington in 1945- - a tantalizing piece of speculation on a proposed meeting between Mao and Roosevelt that could have changed the course of postwar history.- - [Back Cover]