In this episode of 70 seconds, 70 years, we take a look at Edgar Snow, American journalist and writer who offered detailed accounts of the Communist Party of China.
Snow arrived in China in 1928. He visited the revolutionary areas in northwest China in 1936 and interviewed a number of top Party leaders, including Mao Zedong.
“Red Star over China”, completed in 1937, is regarded as one of Snow’s most important works. John K. Fairbank, who wrote the introduction, remarked that the book not only provided the first connected history of Chairman Mao and his colleagues and where they had come from, but it also outlined the nation’s future prospects.
Snow’s works have contributed to the revolution and construction of the new China. What’s more, they helped people in the US gain a better understanding of China.
Snow eventually died in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1972. To honour his last wish, part of his ashes were buried in a tomb situated across the Weiming Lake in Peking University. The epitaph on his tombstone, carved in both English and Chinese, reads “Edgar Snow, American friend of the Chinese people.”
I’m Wang Yizhi with CCTV NEWS. See you next time.
