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The Secret History Behind the Game That Changed the World
Scribner
January 2014
On Sale: January 7, 2014
352 pages
ISBN: 1451642776
EAN: 9781451642773
Kindle: B00BSAZ4KM
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
THE SPRING OF 1971 heralded the greatest geopolitical realignment in a generation. After twenty-two years of antagonism, China and the United States suddenly moved toward a dΓ©tenteβachieved not by politicians but by Ping-Pong players. The Western press delighted in the absurdity of the moment and branded it βPing-Pong Diplomacy.β But for the Chinese, Ping-Pong was always political, a strategic cog in Mao Zedongβs foreign policy. Nicholas Griffin proves that the organized game, from its first breath, was tied to Communism thanks to its founder, Ivor Montagu, son of a wealthy English baron and spy for the Soviet Union.
Ping-Pong Diplomacy traces a crucial interΒsection of sports and society. Griffin tells the strange and tragic story of how the game was manipulated at the highest levels; how the Chinese government helped cover up the death of 36 million peasants by holding the World Table Tennis Championships during the Great Famine; how championship players were driven to their deaths during the Cultural Revolution; and, finally, how the survivors were reconvened in 1971 and ordered to reach out to their American counterparts. Through a cast of eccentric characters, from spies to hippies and Ping-Pong-obsessed generals to atom-bomb survivors, Griffin explores how a neglected sport was used to help realign the balance of worldwide power.
 Media BuzzAll Things Considered - January 20, 2014
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