I Chose China: The Metamorphosis of a Country & a Man

""I have tried in these pages to tell something of what it is like to be a particle in the centrifuge that created one of the most momentous changes in Chinese history,"" writes Shapiro, a Jewish lawyer from New York, and a contemporary of the Westerners such as Edgar Snow (author the classic Red Star Over China) who fell under the Communist country's spell in the 1940s. In 1947, at age 32, Shapiro traveled to China to perfect his Yale University-learned Chinese, and fell in love with Mao's revolution and with Phoenix, a Chinese actress, writer and revolutionary, whom he married in 1948; in 1963, he became a Chinese citizen. While Phoenix traveled with her political work, Shapiro raised their daughter (who now attends college in the U.S.), wrote about Jews in China and witnessed many major events, such as the Cultural Revolution, the purge of the Gang of Four and the Tiananmen Square crackdown on democracy. In sharp contrast to Chinese expatriates who have come to the U.S. bearing stories of oppression, this expatriate American (who has visited the U.S. six times since his initial departure) retains the idealistic fervor that gripped many Western radicals in the 1960s: ""Certainly the influence of the Chinese revolution on China and the world is beyond question. It has brought a better life for the Chinese people, a better chance of peace and prosperity for people of other lands."" Even though Phoenix died in 1996, Shapiro plans, at age 84, to remain there. This rare firsthand account by an American of China's transformation in the last 50 years will fascinate anyone interested in this great unfolding story. (Jan.)