About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton

by James Mann

Book Overview

"Mann's colorful and detailed narrative, studded with dozens of vivid anecdotes, reveals how ineptly [we] have managed our ties with the world's most populous nation." -- The Washington Post Book... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067945053X
• ISBN13: 9780679450535
• Release Date: December 1998
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 433 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.6" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Best China read I've found in a long time.

I spend a large percentage of my time reading about and studying China, but I rarely find a book that captivates me like this one did. James Mann is very knowledgeable and insightful about U.S. - China relations. Since he used information newly available (at the time of the book's publication, in 1998) under the Freedom of Information act, his detailed research goes well beyond what you will find in the news and most books. The best part about this book, however, is simply how well written it is. It is completely scholarly, yet it reads like a story. It's rare that I say this about a nonfiction book, but I couldn't put "About Face" down.

A must for any China researcher

This is highly detailed and well written book covering the intricacy of U.S. policy towards China.

A Sharp Eye on China

If you want to know what is wrong with American policy towards China, there is no better place to start than James Mann's superb "About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, From Nixon to Clinton."As a skilled journalist, Mann writes clearly and to the point. But this book is more than a journalistic tour de force. Mann has been following the China story since he was posted by the Los Angeles Times to Beijing in 1984 and his experience has produced a depth of knowledge unmatched by any academic China watcher I have read. That knowledge not only shines through in the main text but it is testified to in a notes section full of sources and corroborating detail.What I particularly like about this book is its uncommon commonsense. Mann refuses to be swept off his feet by the "romance of China" -- a romance that repeatedly over the last century has discombobulated the thinking of American policy-makers, business executive, scholars and journalists. Stolidly eyeing the authoritarian reality behind all the fine words and sumptuous banquets that Beijing bestows on influential visitors, Mann constantly reminds us how sorry has been China's record on human rights in recent decades -- and how cravenly Washington has sought to sweep that record under the carpet. This book is important too for its worldly wisdom in repeatedly showing the ease with which the Chinese system can manipulate America's money-driven and short-sighted political system. None of this is particularly surprising to those of us who have been watching U.S.-Japan relations in recent decades -- but it is rare for China experts (and still rarer for Japan experts) to highlight how the East runs rings around our Western democratic institutions. Essentially this book is characterized throughout by a show-me attitude to the American intellectual community's vapid determinism on East Asia. As Mann repeatedly points out, China is far from being "bound" to converge towards Western values. Quite the reverse, thanks to the comprehensive mismanagement of American trade policy in the last fifteen years, China is now in a stronger position than ever to flaunt its rejection of those values. First published in 1998, this book has already been around for a while. Don't be put off. "About Face" has no sell-by date. It is a modern classic. -- Eamonn Fingleton, author of "In Praise of Hard Industries: Why Manufacturing, Not the Information Economy, Is the Key to Future Prosperity ."

Not losing face

About Face puts into perspective much of what I have experienced first-hand living in Taiwan and China for the past 20 years. Although no administration comes out with its reputation intact, clearly China, not afraid to use brinkmanship, has been more effective in bending US policy to its advantage. Mr. Mann's objective reporting show that China has come to understand the workings of America's political system, while the US remains ineffective in dealing with China's rulers who continue to mock American ideals of human rights and democracy while at the same time convincing the US to assist in modernizing its armed forces and investing billions of dollars in its economy. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to make sense out of US-China relations since Henry Kissinger or concerned about the developing US-China relations. This book will give a better foundation for understanding upcoming WTO and Taiwan arms sales issues, as well as China's bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.

The truth is unsettling

Very informative. Makes you wish it was a novel, and not the way our government has handled the relations with China all these years. This is a must read for anyone interested in geo-political events. Easy to read, scary to think about. Gives insight into the mess we find ourselves in now, Aug 99, with China.