Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Asia Society Vice President and Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations and the former dean of the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author of numerous books, most recently My Old Home: A Novel of Exile (2021) and, with John Delury, Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-First Century (2013).

• Part I. Reprising Something Past1. An Excavation2. Falling Under China’s ThrallPart II. How It All Began3. An Unlikely Idea4. A Green Light5. The Bethlehem of BolshevismPart III. Into the Heart of the Dragon6. Getting Started7. Collaboration8. Unto the Breach9. Approaching a Red-Hot Stove10. The Great Within11. Homecoming12. Death and Transfiguration13. Back to Work14. Peter Goes Missing15. Persona Non Grata16. Not a Sea Slug Tour17. Mission Accomplished18. Beijing Sensitivities19. An End and a BeginningPart IV. Why This Story Still Matters20. Home Free21. Some Historical Reflections22. Then and Now23. The Past as Prologue24. And Now for Something Old25. A Higher Stage of Communism?AcknowledgmentsIndex

For someone like me, who lived in exile with my father and spent my childhood displaced, reading Orville Schell’s work is deeply affecting. His sincerity, the richness of detail, and his tireless pursuit of truth, preserving it as evidence for humanity, reflect an immense effort that I find profoundly moving and striking. In many ways, it resonates with my own commitment to recording history and holding it up as a mirror to illuminate our present reality; this, to me, is the book’s true significance.It is, without question, a very special work. For a country as vast as China, it will preserve an unforgettable memory for the future. The author’s craft and clarity of structure stem entirely from his passion for truth and his unwavering dedication to pursuing it.