With the publication of her landmark bestseller Paris 1919, Margaret MacMillan was praised as "a superb writer who can bring history to life" (The Philadelphia Inquirer). Now she brings her extraordinary gifts to one of the most important subjects today — the relationship between the United States and China — and one of the most significant moments in modern history. In February 1972, Richard Nixon, the first American president ever to visit China, and Mao Tse-tung, the enigmatic Communist dictator, met for an hour in Beijing. Their meeting changed the course of history and ultimately laid the groundwork for the complex relationship between China and the United States that we see today.

That monumental meeting in 1972 — during what Nixon called the week that changed the world — could have been brought about only by powerful leaders: Nixon himself, a great strategist and a flawed human being, and Mao, willful and ruthless. They were assisted by two brilliant and complex statesmen, Henry Kissinger and Chou En-lai. Surrounding them were fascinating people with unusual roles to play, including the enormously disciplined and unhappy Pat Nixon and a small-time Shanghai actress turned monstrous empress, Jiang Qing. And behind all of them lay the complex history of two countries, two great and equally confident civilizations: China, ancient and contemptuous yet fearful of barbarians beyond the Middle Kingdom, and the United States, forward-looking and confident, seeing itself as the beacon for the world.

Nixon thought China could help him get out of Vietnam. Mao needed American technology and expertise to repair the damage of the Cultural Revolution. Both men wanted an ally against anaggressive Soviet Union. Did they get what they wanted? Did Mao betray his own revolutionary ideals? How did the people of China react to this apparent change in attitude toward the imperialist Americans? Did Nixon make a mistake in coming to China as a supplicant? And what has been the impact of the visit on the United States ever since?

Weaving together fascinating anecdotes and insights, an understanding of Chinese and American history, and the momentous events of an extraordinary time, this brilliantly written book looks at one of the transformative moments of the twentieth century and casts new light on a key relationship for the world of the twenty-first century.

"Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to Beijing to open relations with Communist China was both a Cold War milestone and compelling political theater. Diplomatic historian MacMillan, author of the acclaimed Paris 1919, gives a lively account of the pomp and protocol surrounding the trip: the awkward banquets, the toasts to peace and friendship (punctuated by occasional anti-imperialist lectures), the Great Wall pilgrimages, the proletarian operas (Nixon attended The Red Detachment of Women, in which peasants and revolutionaries battle landlords). MacMillan's even better on the behind-the-scenes negotiations, as the two sides wrangle over every word of the climactic Shanghai communiqu. More than Nixon and the cloistered Mao, the central figures are Henry Kissinger and Chinese premier Chou En-Lai, tasked with finding common ground and finessing differences with subtle verbiage and winks and nods. The author fills in the background with colorful, incisive biographical sketches and a lucid history of Sino-American relations. The encounter seems to have had little impact on the issues discussed during the trip — the Vietnam war, the fate of Taiwan, relations with the Soviets. Still, MacMillan argues, it opened the door to today's necessary relationship between the two Pacific powers, and she turns a potentially dry diplomatic story into a fascinating study in high-wire diplomacy, full of intrigue and drama. Photos. (Feb. 20)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"What did President Richard M. Nixon, National Security Adviser Henry A. Kissinger and Chinese leader Mao Zedong really discuss during their unprecedented February 1972 meeting in Beijing? With surprising frequency, Mao turned the conversation to the subject of women.

Kissinger 'doesn't look like a secret agent,' said Nixon, a world-class anti-communist, to the enigmatic chairman of the... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Chinese Communist Party. 'He is the only man in captivity who could go to Paris 12 times and Peking once and no one knew it, except possibly a couple of pretty girls.'

'They didn't know it,' Kissinger grinned. 'I used it as a cover.'

'In Paris?' Mao asked.

'Anyone who uses pretty girls as a cover must be the greatest diplomat of all time,' Nixon bragged.

But the object of Nixon, Kissinger and Mao's meeting was hardly so frivolous. Since Kissinger, that most unlikely secret agent, took his furtive journey in 1971 to re-establish ties between the two erstwhile Cold War rivals, scores of books have been written on how he and Nixon boldly catalyzed a new relationship between two implacable ideological foes into a largely constructive conversation that rattled the Soviet Union and continues to this day. But few have done as well at giving us a 'you are there' feel for the historic talks — sometimes somber, sometimes comic — as Margaret MacMillan, the best-selling author of 'Paris 1919,' who has now applied her impressive powers of research and storytelling to this iconic episode in U.S. diplomatic history. If the power-balancing, realist school of Republican foreign policy so often derided by so many had a finest hour, this was surely it.

Nixon and Kissinger's overture forever changed the Cold War by reconfiguring the communist bloc and bringing Washington and Beijing together to balance Moscow. In a 1967 article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Nixon presciently observed that 'Taking the long view, we simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations, there to nurture its fantasies, cherish its hates and threaten its neighbors.' But no one did more to incarnate that forbidden idea as policy than his unlikely partner, the professorial apostle of realpolitik, Henry Kissinger. The process that Nixon set in motion — the former Red-baiter breaking the taboo on talks with the massive communist power — led to one of those rare times in history when daring leadership actually did redirect the course of events for the better. Nixon and Mao's negotiations substantially lessened the chance that the United States and China would go to war; by 'playing the China card,' Nixon goaded the Soviet Union into yielding on SALT I, the 1972 nuclear arms control treaty, and signaled to the North Vietnamese that China might not prove as devoted to the cause of 'national liberation' in Indochina as they might have hoped.

Kissinger has often been criticized as a latter-day Machiavellian who gave short shrift to morality or such values as democracy, human rights or loyalty to old allies such as Taiwan. His objective 'was to purge our foreign policy of all sentimentality,' MacMillan writes. In this aspiration, Kissinger agreed with Lord Palmerston, the statesman who proclaimed of Britain in the 19th century, 'We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual.'

So only a realist could go to China. A more sentimental or moralistic diplomat might well have been thrown off course by the thought of dealing with a Leninist dictatorship that had afflicted its people with almost every imaginable indignity in the name of Marxist revolution. For Kissinger, however, power was power, and it begged to be dealt with. And looking back on this seminal Sino-U.S. interaction, it is undeniable that this audacious, if seemingly unprincipled, move was in the best interests of the United States and the world.

What makes 'Nixon and Mao' such a good read is not only that MacMillan, who has availed herself of some valuable new interviews, narrates the history beautifully; it is also that her story is peopled by so many larger-than-life figures. She has a dramatis personae with monumental strengths and insecurities, titanic egos, oceans of vanity and some mammoth tragic flaws to boot — all acting out their dramas on a grand tableau of world power.

Although Kissinger worked actively with Nixon, he was not close to him and at times disparaged the president. 'He would have been a great, great man had somebody loved him,' Kissinger once famously quipped. For his part, Nixon called the notoriously thin-skinned Kissinger 'a genius' but added that there were times when 'you have to pet Henry and treat him like a child.'

When it came to Zhou Enlai, China's premier, Kissinger was always admiring, sometimes fawning. 'He moved gracefully and with dignity,' Kissinger said of their first meeting, 'filling a room not by his physical dominance (as did Mao or de Gaulle) but by his air of controlled tension, steely discipline, and self-control, as if he were a coiled spring.' Indeed, in reading through the transcripts of the negotiations, Kissinger repeatedly evinces a weakness for such flattery. At one point, he tried to curry favor with Zhou by telling him that he was deeply moved 'by the idealism and spiritual qualities of yourself and your colleagues.' The communist premier coolly rejoined, 'I suggest that we have a quick lunch.'

The Americans' reverence was not always returned by the Chinese. Zhou derisively suggested that Nixon had all too 'eagerly' sought out his invitation to Beijing, not unlike a hooker who would 'dress up elaborately and present herself at the door.' And Mao dismissed Kissinger as 'just a funny little man ... shuddering all over with nerves every time he comes to see me.'

Such detail is beguiling, of course. But what makes reading MacMillan all the more worthwhile is our current, moralistic penchant for refusing to talk to countries such as Cuba, Syria and Iran. 'Nixon and Mao' reminds us that sometimes the national interest is best served by maintaining relations with adversaries — even dictatorships we consider utterly repellent. Indeed, in 1971-72, during the Cold War, it is hard to imagine a country that was in worse political odor in America than 'Red China,' which many U.S. officials deemed too besmirched to be seated at the negotiating table. And yet Kissinger and Nixon's ministrations brought two hostile nations into a completely new relationship. Many Western evangelists had hoped that the overture would immediately change communist China, which it did not; but it did indeed change the world.

Orville Schell is dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and the incoming director of the Asia Society's new Center on U.S.-China Relations.

" Reviewed by Theola LabbiColbert KingRon CharlesRuth PadelChristine RosenFrank AhrensCandice MillardOrville Schell, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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"MacMillan is strong on diplomacy but weak on Chinese politics....What is a wonder is that it has taken until now for a general history to be written about this diplomatic milestone." Los Angeles Times

"A sometimes gripping, always entertaining and ultimately insightful examination of Nixon's visit to China." Houston Chronicle

"First-rate popular history featuring a compelling cast, swift narration and rigorous analysis." Kirkus Reviews

MacMillan makes history come to life in one of the most important subjects today: the relationship between the United States and China and the historic meeting of Richard Nixon and Mao Tse-tung in 1972 that ultimately laid the groundwork for the relationship between the two nations.

Margaret MacMillan is the author of Women of the Raj and Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History, a Silver Medal for the Arthur Ross Book Award of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction. It was selected by the editors of The New York Times as one of the best books of 2002. Currently the provost of Trinity College and a professor of history at the University of Toronto, MacMillan takes up the position of warden of St. Antony's College, Oxford, in July 2007. She is an officer of the Order of Canada, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a senior fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto.