Two Kinds of Time

"Of the many people who came to China in the 20th century and wrote about it, Peck remains one of the most fluid and sensitive. . . . [The book] gives a fabulous picture of this moment when America, and the West more generally, and China try to come to an understanding and singularly fail, and unfortunately set the path, for the best part of a quarter of a century, for isolation from each other before things change again in the 1960s and 1970s."

"Riveting and hilarious accounts of travels through WW II-era China by an American diplomat (and litterateur and artist), fascinating in their own right and all the more rewarding because of their resonance with the superficially different China of 60+ years later."

"Two Kinds of Time is an extensive chronicle, a highly recommended snapshot of this period."

"This handsomely produced reissue gives us a chance to revisit Graham Peck's slyly rollicking, incisive, and influential underground classic of reporting on wartime China."

"Two Kinds of Time is a lyrical, often poetic, sumptuous read."

"It gives me great joy to celebrate the reappearance of the best book on China that I have ever read, Graham Peck's Two Kinds of Time, nearly six decades after its original publication. This book is at once hilarious and horrifying, heart-warming and heart-breaking, educational and entertaining."

"What is missing in the most recent assessments of China's tectonic changes over the past half century is a baseline against which to measure the grand scale of its development. Two Kinds of Time by Graham Peck, written in lucid, descriptive prose by someone who has based his reportage on 'being there,' provides just such a baseline. In the most vivid way, Peck takes us back to Chiang Kai-shek's China during WWII, and by doing so, reminds us of the amazingly transformative odyssey this so-called 'sick man of Asia's' has been on since."

"This unique and fascinating book tells how Graham Peck looked into the hearts of the Chinese of his day, from peasant to coolie to clerk, and understood what he saw as few Americans ever have. Today, rising China is immersed in a new kind of revolution. Understanding China is critical for our future - this book is a unique treasure - house of background for that understanding."

"'Best book most readers are likely to have missed': Two Kinds of Time, by Graham Peck, a marvelous words - and - drawings chronicle of travels through China in the decade leading up to the Communist revolution in 1949."

"Two Kinds of Time, a brilliantly written (and illustrated, with the author's drawings) saga of travels through pre-communist China, puts into perspective how much has changed in China, and how much has not."

"Congratulations to Robert A. Kapp and to the publishers on bringing this remarkable work in its original form to a new twenty-first century readership."