In Retrospect: The lessons to be learned from Edgar Snow’s ‘Red Star Over China’

Edgar Snow (1905-1972) is by far best remembered for Red Star Over China. However, his earlier life was also one of some adventure and excitement. From Kansas City, he attended the University of Missouri and looked set for a career in Manhattan in advertising — until the Wall Street Crash. The Depression set him off for China in the hope of more opportunity — he was to stay 13 years, know just about everyone, Chinese or foreign, who was anyone, and marry Helen Foster, another American journalist working in China.

He spent time in the famine districts of northwest China, traveled the Burma Road, and explored Manchuria. Living in Shanghai initially, the couple moved to Beijing, where Snow taught journalism at Yenching University and started several left-wing magazines. In this way, they became acquainted with leftist students who eased Snow’s path to Yan’an.

After World War Two, Snow continued to write about China and Asia, invariably from a leftist perspective. In the 1950s, he encountered some trouble from Senator Joseph McCarthy and eventually moved to Switzerland. He returned to China in 1960 and 1964 to interview Máo Zédōng 毛泽东 and Zhōu Ēnlái 周恩来. In 1970, he stood next to Mao during the National Day parade in Beijing, during which Mao told Snow that he would welcome Nixon to China. Snow never saw that trip, dying the day Nixon arrived in China.

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