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BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
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Description
In the spirit of his father, Alexandre Trudeau revisits China to put a ground-breaking journey into a fresh, contemporary context.
In 1960, Pierre Trudeau and Jacques Hebert, a labour lawyer and a journalist from Montreal, travelled to China in the midst of the Great Leap Forward. In 1968, when Two Innocents in Red China, Trudeau and Hebert's sardonic look at a third world country's first steps into the rest world, was released in English, Trudeau had become prime minister of Canada. "It seemed to us imperative that the citizens of our democracy should know more about China," Trudeau wrote in the foreword.
Four decades later, China's emergence as an economic and military heavyweight beckoned Trudeau's journalist son Alexandre to retrace his father's footsteps and add additional material to the book. The result is a thought-provoking new perspective on the Canadian classic that helped open China to the world.
Editorial Reviews
"Alexandre's 33 intensely serious pages contrast sharply with the far more expansive, slyly humorous pages, penned by the elder Trudeau and Hebert...Alexandre's introduction tries to analyze the Red China visited by the two innocents. His father, in the subsequent pages, seems more concerned with having fun. Pierre plots ways of slipping away from the ever-present government guides and wonders how much he dare flirt with one pretty young translator. The Trudeau-Hebert section is delightfully dated."
— Montreal Gazette
"Their myth-breaking has a tone of foresight for readers over 40 years later, such as when they say that China indeed is capable of harnessing its numbers and transforming itself into an industrial power...Just as the book itself is fun to read, the new introduction is equally enjoyable, [and]...lends a personal and intimate touch to this informal look at China."
— The Embassy
"Sacha Trudeau, a documentary filmmaker who inherited his father's love of exploration, has honoured that intrepid spirit through his role in the newly republished edition of Two Innocents in Red China, a wry, at times mischievous and often insightful travelogue detailing a 1960 trip made by Pierre Trudeau and friend Jacques Hebert to the People's Republic...Some in Quebec criticized Pierre Trudeau for visiting China during the dark days of Maoist tyranny. But Pierre Trudeau and Hebert aimed to illustrate that much could be gained by simply observing. 'The point is not to judge other worlds by the standards of your own,' says Sacha Trudeau. It's something to remember, he adds, when dealing with the newly resurgent China."
— Toronto Star
