To Peking-and-Beyond: A Report on the New Asia
by Harrison Salisbury
On This Page
Description
Salisbury reports of his impressions of China after spending six weeks there in 1972 traveling and interviewing people.Tags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
This book shines on several levels. Firstly it is remarkable prescient in predicting the opening up of the Chinese economy and the population, social and environmental pressures that would arise in China over the next thirty years. It gives a very considered (and well researched) history of Sino-Soviet tensions, and of the Cultural Revolution. He focuses on the highly political splits and conflicts between different elements of the red guards and exposes both local and national political agendas that were being pursued through their actions, using interviews with many of the main characters very shortly after the events they discussed. It was also a record of journey the author took through North Korea. There he noted the already show more bizarre aspects of that society, but missed the mark considerably in predicting that the North might follow a path of rapid development that - in the event - only occurred in the South. show less
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
62+ Works 2,802 Members
Foreign correspondent par excellence, Harrison Salisbury reported on World War II, Russia under Joseph Stalin and Khrushchev, Vietnam during the war, China, and numerous other hot spots around the world. He also covered the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s and inaugurated the op-ed page of The New York Times, a paper he was associated with show more for much of his career. Born into an intellectual family in Minneapolis, Salisbury got an early start in his career. After graduating from high school two years early, he worked intermittently as a reporter for the Minneapolis Journal while attending the University of Minnesota. When he was expelled from the university because of his crusading journalism, he joined United Press, and by 1934 was working in its Washington, D.C., bureau. During World War II, he reported from England, North Africa, and the Middle East, as well as Russia. In 1949, Salisbury went to work for The New York Times as the paper's Moscow correspondent. For the next six years, he got to know Russia and in 1955 wrote a series of articles on it that won him the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. Salisbury joined the Times board in 1962 and became assistant managing editor in 1964. Still he continued to make his journalistic forays abroad. From December 12, 1966, to January 7, 1967, he reported from Hanoi, North Vietnam, the first American journalist to gain entrance to that country during the Vietnam War. His dispatches earned him several awards, including the Overseas Press Club's Asian Award, although the idea of an American reporting from enemy territory upset many people in Washington and elsewhere. The dispatches were soon turned into a book, Behind the Lines---Hanoi (1967). Salisbury retired from the Times in 1973. He produced 23 books, several of them dealing with social and political life in Russia under communism. He also wrote two novels and two autobiographical books. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1973
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 29
- Popularity
- 949,584
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.50)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 5
