Before Mr Kissinger himself enters the narrative, the reader is offered 200 pages of history of modern China and its foreign relations.

ECONOMIST: America and China

And Macau's status as the oldest--and only--European colony left in Asia means Beijing will embrace something equally novel: a testament to multiplicity, as well as a history of cultural exchange that belies the sameness and insularity that often marks modern China.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Visions of China: Macau

She is afraid of what will be lost when those who have lived through China's modern history inevitably grow old and die.

ECONOMIST: Oral history in China: Tales of old | The