From the time of Marco Polo, the Celestial Empire has excited Western curiosity and it has also aroused admiration, repulsion and profound misunderstanding. Whether or not Polo ever did get to China in person remains unproven, though he had access to information about it through Venetian merchants and other channels. Matteo Ricci, the remarkable Jesuit, certainly went, and became a person of some consequence there because of his scientific and mathematical training. Some later missionaries also wrote illuminatingly about China, although popular Western stereotypes continued to credit Chinamen with a love of elaborate tortures and (personified by Fu Manchu) almost superhuman cunning. More recently, Mao and his successors have attracted many good journalists, while intellectuals such as Calvino have played intricate mind-games with China. This book seems a little loose-jointed at times, but well conceived.