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This biography tries to counter the Western perception of Jiang Zemin
as a leader of Communist China and emphasizes instead how far Chinese
leadership has come since the days of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.
As China's head of state from 1993 to 2003, Jiang was, in Kuhn's
view, a visionary who put a new face on China through his love of science
and technology as well as a series of important foreign policy encounters;
the author emphasizes Jiang's tension-fraught relationship with the
Western press, his quirky style of winning over foreign leaders through
bursting into song and his support of America's war on terror.
Though detailed and readable, the book is at times cloying: the
less flattering points in Jiang's career are glossed over. 32 pages of
b&w photos.
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