Edgar Snow, the famous American foreign correspondent, once asked Mao Tse-tung for his appraisal of the social implications of the French Revolution. Mao reflected a while and then, shaking his head, said: 'I think it's still a bit too early to tell.' The late Chinese leader's caution might seem excessive even to the most obsessive historians. In today's hurried world, politicians, strategists and international lawyres tend to place as much of premium on instant analysis as journalists do, but whether they reach balanced conclusions is whether they reach balanced conclusions is something else again.

LRB 6 June 1985 | PDF Download