July 1966

Professor Schurmann is not modest. Near the beginning of his book he writes: “translations from Chinese, Russian and Japanese are my own, and hundreds of articles had to be read in the original Chinese with precision and at the same time extensively. It was important to interview people…and this required a fluent knowledge of Chinese as it is spoken today.” These statements, daunting to the layman, are terrifying to anyone involved with Chinese studies. Yet he is not exaggerating.