01.29.08
Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World…
Just finished up Nixon and Mao: The Week that changed the world. If you’re deeply interested in US or modern Chinese history, I think you’ll find it an interesting read. It’s not one of the best books I’ve read by any means, but it wasn’t a disappointment either.
Note that American records are still quite a lot more transparent than Chinese records, the Author is a westerner, and the book is titled “Nixon and Mao” not “Mao and Nixon”. As such, the books is clearly written from the prospective of an American looking into China rather than from the Chinese looking into America…
Maybe one day there will be a new version: 毛主席和尼克松。。。
One interesting though to consider, the USA has still not normalized relations with Cuba or North Korea, and look at the economic development (or lack thereof) in those places. It’s not impossible to say that without the vision of both Nixon and Mao, the situation could still be like that of North Korea… Moreover, would Deng Xiaoping’s embrace of market economics have been permitted before taking the first steps toward relations with the USA? Without those relations, where would the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone have exported goods to?
All and all a bit more US centric than I would prefer, and the pronunciation of 钓鱼台 into something sounding like “débutante” were a bit hard to bear, but very interesting to see how the entire backroom political system works — quite similar to sales 
