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31+ Works 1,118 Members 11 Reviews 1 Favorited

About the Author

Includes the names: Edgar Snow, Edgar Snow

Image credit: Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery (image use requires permission from the New York Public Library

Works by Edgar Snow

People on our side (1940) 93 copies
The Long Revolution (1972) 84 copies
The Pattern of Soviet Power (1945) 36 copies
Journey to the beginning (1958) 34 copies
The Battle For Asia (1941) 18 copies
Stalin must have peace (1947) 16 copies
Scorched earth : book i (1941) 6 copies
Scorched earth (1941) 5 copies
Glory and bondage, (1946) 5 copies
Scorched Earth: Book II (1941) 4 copies

Associated Works

Away with All Pests: An English Surgeon in People's China, 1954-1969 (1969) — Introduction, some editions — 60 copies
Tiibetin punaiset tuulet (1964) — Foreword, some editions — 14 copies

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Birthdate
1905-07-17
Date of death
1972-02-15
Gender
male
Nationality
USA
Birthplace
Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Place of death
Geneva, Switzerland
Places of residence
New York, New York, USA
Shanghai, China
Beijing, China
Education
University of Missouri (dropped out)
Occupations
journalist
Relationships
Snow, Helen Foster (wife)
Epstein, Israel (friend)
Organizations
China Weekly Review
Yenching University
The Saturday Evening Post
Short biography
Edgar Snow is best known for his books and reporting on the Chinese Communist revolution. He was the first Western journalist to interview Mao Zedong and one of the first in the world to recognize Mao's importance as the leader of the Communist movement. Although as a journalist he was supposed to be objective, many believe he romanticized the Communist Chinese and presented only a sympathetic view of their activities.  

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Reviews

$30. First Edition. Excellent Condition.
 
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susangeib | Sep 23, 2023 |
 
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susangeib | 6 other reviews | Sep 14, 2023 |
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).… (more)
 
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Dilip-Kumar | Jul 18, 2023 |
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.… (more)
 
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Dilip-Kumar | 6 other reviews | Jun 2, 2023 |

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Statistics

Works
31
Also by
4
Members
1,118
Popularity
#22,979
Rating
4.0
Reviews
11
ISBNs
65
Languages
10
Favorited
1

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