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CHINA CONFIDENTIAL: American Diplomats and Sino-American Relations, 1945-1996. Edited by Nancy Bernkopf Tucker. New York: Columbia University Press. 2001. xxii, 569 pp. US$49.96, cloth, ISBN 0-231-10630-0; US$18.50, paper, ISBN 0-231-10631-9.
Nancy Bernkopf Tucker has done the field of Sino-American relations a great service by assembling together this collection of oral reminiscences of U.S. diplomats who guided and implemented American relations with the governments of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong during the half-century from 1945 to 1996. This volume adds a considerable amount of new detail and context to the existing record of U.S.-China relations during this turbulent and complex period of diplomatic history.
China Confidential adds a unique perspective to the now considerable, and still growing, number of scholarly studies - the perspective of the unvarnished voices of the participants themselves. This is the value of oral history, but usually this genre offers a single or a few voices, usually from high-level policymakers in their memoirs. Here, Professor Tucker has assembled the reminiscences of no fewer than fifty-one American diplomats - individuals who were not only involved in policymaking, but also those involved in the nitty-gritty of policy implementation and management of the...