China Cold War (2 results)

First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the chairman of the Ghanaian National Liberation Council on the front pastedown, "Joseph Arthur Ankrah, Chairman N.L.C., Ghana. With compliments." Above the inscription is the book label of Malcolm MacDonald, a former British high commissioner in Ghana and Whitehall's Special Representative to East and Central Africa, 1965-70. During the second half of the 1960s, MacDonald worked closely with Ankrah to try and bring conflicting parties in the Nigerian Civil War to the negotiating table. He also made a favourable impression on senior leaders of communist China, whose deep-rooted political and practical support for Nkrumah is documented in this accusatory publication. According to Premier Zhou Enlai, MacDonald was "the only capitalist we can trust" (New York Times). "Malcolm MacDonald, British Envoy and Son of Ex-Prime Minister", New York Times, 12 January 1981. Quarto. Tables and illustrations in text. Original red cloth, front cover blocked in black. Cloth darkened in place, light rubbing to extremities, offsetting on title page: very good.

First edition, first printing, presentation copy, inscribed on the front free endpaper in Chinese by the Chinese delegation to the Fifth World Festival of Youth and Students, "Presented to our dear young friend from America - China Youth League Delegation, Warsaw, August 1955". Convened by the World Federation of Democratic Youth, the festival took anti-imperialism as its theme. More than 30,000 people from 114 countries participated, and the programme of events included parades, speeches, performances, and sports meets. The proceedings gave everyday Poles an unprecedented opportunity to peek behind the Iron Curtain and ironically helped lay the foundations for the Pozna Protests. Sino-American relations remained strained amidst the fallout from the Korean War. One year earlier, at the Geneva Conference, John Foster Dulles had famously refused to shake hands with Premier Zhou Enlai. In Warsaw, to protest American hard power, China's representatives joined Russian and Japanese young people in a spirited rendition of the song "Never Let the Atom Bomb Explode Again". Building bridges with left-wing Americans sympathetic to Beijing was likewise an important part of the Chinese delegation's strategy. Below the presentation inscription is another reading (in Chinese) "Long live friendly relations between Chinese and American youth! Liu Meiqing". Martin Parr & WassinkLundgren, The Chinese Photobook: From the 1900s to the Present, second edition, 2016, p. 160-1. Quarto. Illustrated throughout in colour and black and white; floral vignette on title page. Text in Russian, English, and French. Original green boards, tan cloth backstrip, spine lettered and decorated in black, front cover lettered in black, blue and white decorative endpapers. Boards sunned, one tip worn, occasional staining and foxing in text: a very good copy.