The Long March: The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth by Sun Shuyun;Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary by Gao Wenqian; Peter Rand; Lawrence R. SullivanReview by: Lucian W. PyeForeign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 2008), pp. 195-196Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20020320 .

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focus on independence movements and the final arrangements for new states. Roy addresses some overlooked dimen sions: the differences between state building and nation building and the role of state institutions and structures in elaborating and consolidating the understanding and practices of nation hood. She shows that there is more to Indian national identity than the themes of the independence movement. A strong sense of identity was secured, for example, by the popular acceptance of the prod ucts of the Indian film industry, which culturally look both back into history and forward into India's future. Her analysis of the Republic Day parade

will strike a chord of recognition with anyone who has ever been in New

Delhi on January 26.

The Long March: The True History of Communist Chinas Founding Myth. BY SUN SHUYUN. Doubleday, 2007,

288 pp. $26.oo.

Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary. BY GAO WENQIAN. TRANSLATED BY

PETER RAND AND LAWRENCE R.

SULLIVAN. PublicAffairs, 2007,

345 pp. $27.95. These two books dramatically illustrate that the story of Chinese communism is in a constant state of revision. What at one point in time seemed like solid history turns out to have been myth and make-believe. Sun grew up with a father who had been a high officer in the Red Army, and when she decided to retrace the Long March, interviewing people

who had had firsthand experiences with a central story in the rise of Chinese communism, she was determined to get the true story. Gao, meanwhile,

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Recent Books

wanted to get the true story of Zhou Enlai's role in the history of Chinese communism-and thus had to debunk some myths.

Other historians and scholars have found fault with the Communist Party's account of the Long March, but Sun's research provides a new baseline for all future treatment of that major propaganda event. Sun is able to demonstrate that the Xiang River Battle, which the official history of the Long March identifies as the "longest and most heroic" battle of the entire campaign, was in fact a major defeat for the Communists, with casualties and desertions reducing the First Army from 86,ooo to 30,000 people. Sun's objective reporting of what she learned about the sufferings of the marchers adds up to a more impressive story than the party's propaganda version.

Gao's biography of Zhou is further proof of the payoffs of telling the truth about politically sensitive matters. Gao has brought together the full story of Zhou's revolutionary accomplishments, beginning with his early years in build ing Communist cells among Chinese students in France and Germany. In tracing Zhou's career, Gao explores in detail the highly personalized factional battles of the Chinese Communist lead ership. The story comes to a dramatic conclusion with Zhou on his deathbed, in excruciating pain from bladder cancer

but able to call on his wife and Deng Xiaoping to keep up the fight against Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolu

tionaries. This book will certainly help secure a positive memory of Zhou.

Africa NICOLAS VAN DE WALLE

Africa's Silk Road: China and India's New Economic Frontier. BY HARRY G. BROADMAN. World Bank, 2007,

384 pp. $20.00.

China's growing political and economic interest in Africa has been much remarked on in the last two years. Buttressed by considerable economic data, Broadman's

work offers a useful summary of it within the broader context of African-Asian relations. Today, 27 percent of African exports go to Asia, almost double the amount of less than a decade ago. Driving this increase are African natural resources, in particular oil, which accounts for almost half of these exports. The relationship between India and the African continent relies on private networks, linked to long-standing Indian populations in the region. The relationship between China and the region, on the other hand, is

more recent and more often mediated by formal government-to-government agreements. China relies to a considerable extent on exported labor to the region to sustain its investments. Thus, Broadman notes, some 8o,ooo Chinese workers now live in Africa. Having characterized these new economic flows between Asia and Africa, the book examines in its second half the constraints on increasing trade and investment flows. Broadman docu

ments in exhaustive detail the litany of regulatory, governance, infrastructural, and policy deficiencies that continue to undermine the growth and diversification of African economies, suggesting that

[196] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume87No.i

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