About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton

With deft authority and fascinating detail -- drawing on scores of interviews and utilizing recently declassified files -- former Los Angeles Times' Beijing bureau chief James Mann sheds new light on the history of diplomatic relations between the United States and China over the past quarter century.

President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger forged the original U.S.-China partnership in high-level meetings in Beijing, hoping to find a way out of Vietnam. But the premise of the relationship that developed -- securing a Cold War ally against the Soviet Union -- could not withstand the crumbling of trapped in its own precedent. And today, a decade afterward, President Clinton's trade policy with China -- a policy that pays little but lip service to human rights advocacy -- continues in the same vein. This timely, compelling analysis is sure to incite wide debate.