Mosher includes American newspaper correspondents, diplomats, and intellectuals such as Edgar Snow, Archibald Steele, Theodore White, and John K. Fairbank.

[1] As the first American anthropologist allowed into China following the inauguration of the 1979 cultural exchange program, Mosher's personal experience with the rural regions of Guangdong grant additional insight.

Mosher alleges self-deception was apparent in U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit to China and the change from hard-line anti-communist to raising toasts in Chairman Mao Zedong's name.

How the pursuit of realpolitik can lead straight into the realm of fantasy is an intriguing story that many influential politicians and eminent academics would certainly prefer to forget.

- Simon Leys, author of The Chairman's New Clothes: Mao and the Cultural RevolutionFew, if any, books have ever dissected America's shifting biases toward China so well.