Season of High Adventure: Edgar Snow in China (review)

Reviews 261 3.The title ofWang Rixiu's book should be romanized as Lung-shu (Long-shu) rather than Lung-she. For the content ofthe book, see the discussion below. 4.This is especially true after Xuanzong (713-756) ofthe Tang. See Fang Guangchang, Fojiao Dazangjingshi (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1991), pp. 89-93. 5.Both die Book ofRites and the Menaus quote Confucius as saying, "There are no two suns in the sky, nor are diere two lords on the earth" (tian wu er ri, tuwuer wang01 tian wu er ri, min wu er wang). 6.Wang's book, Longshu zengguangjingtu wen, consists ofhis own essays, essays by other advocates ofthe Pure Land faith, and accounts ofmarvels in the name oigan ying (resonance and response) based either on earlier compilations or on his own experiences. 7.Yan Bing (dates unclear), styling himselfas Ruru jushi, studied under Xuefeng Huirán (dates unclear), a disciple ofDahui Zonggao (1058-1163). Known for being well versed in die three teachings, Yan wrote this essay to promote Pure Land faith. His works include a "recorded sayings," the Rurujushi yulu. See Zengaku daijiten, p. 994a, and Mingfu, Zhongguofoxue renming cidian (Taibei: Fangzhou Chubanshe, 1974), p. 628. 8.See Yan's essay in the Longshu zengguangjingtu wen (Shinsan Dainihon zoku Zökyö, vol. 61), juan 12, pp. i99b-20oa. S. Bernard Thomas. Season ofHigh Adventure: Edgar Snow in China. Philip E. Lilienthal Series. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1996. xviii, 434 pp. 29 illustrations. Hardcover $34.95, isbn 0-520-20276-7. In the current media age, where journalists have devolved into celebrities as opposed to investigative reporters, a biography ofEdgar Snow is a timely reminder of a previous era when journalists did not always sacrifice their personal values for personal gain. In his richly textured and moving account ofEdgar Snow, S. Bernard Thomas does not overlook the dimension ofprofessional ambition, but considers it in fhe larger context ofpersonality and history. Relying on eight years ofresearch fhat included visiting critical archival coUections and conducting numerous interviews, Thomas delivers a finely nuanced sense ofhow Snow developed into a journalist and was transformed by his experience in China. Moreover, in focusing on Snow's Odyssey in China, Thomas also vividly depicts fhe unique historical landscape offhe winter-war years as an era ofideological and political© 1997 by University possibilities that could not flourish later, in the bipolar world offhe Cold War. ofHawai'i PressThomas separates Snow's years in China into four parts, preceded by a prologue that sets the stage with an account ofhis early years and foUowed by an epilogue that discusses Snow's post-China career, with an emphasis on his renewed 262 China Review International: Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1997 relationship with China in the late sixties. Born to an upper-middle-class family in Kansas City, Snow initially wanted to go into advertising, and he joined his brother, Howard, in New York after a year at the University ofMissouri as a journalism student. Struck by wanderlust, Snowbegan his journalistic career as a travelogue writer, which included an adventure as a stowaway to Japan. From Japan he went to China, viewing his stay there as transitory. However, he was lured, for both professional and personal reasons, to stay more than a dozen years in the Far East. Obtaining a post at the China Weekly Review (edited and published by J. B. PoweU), and writing for newspapers luce the New York Herald-Tribune and the Chicago Tribune, Snow began to travel to various regions in China and became absorbed in the people and places he encountered. History and personal factors such as the Great Depression, the unfolding revolution in China, and the death of his mother worked to keep Snow in Asia, developing as a journalist. Snow's first experiences in Asia, his maturing style, and his concern with social and economic problems occupy the first part of the book. An important event in Snow's life was his marriage to a dynamic woman, Helen (Peg) Foster. She was vivacious, opinionated, and, besides having a profound influence on her husband, was also an author in her own right (under the pseudonym Nym Wales). Their...