Book excerpt: Beginning with Snow's youthful ambition to travel the globe and concluding with his notable, if unobtrusive, role in the reestablishment of diplomatic ties between America and China, Farnsworth weaves a spellbinding narrative. Snow's adventure in Asia began in Yokohama, where he landed as a stowaway from Hawaii. Then, just steps ahead of Japanese port police, he made his way to China, where he soon empathized with the suffering of the Chinese people and became curious about the role Communism might play in the rebellion against colonialism. As he traveled throughout the continent during the next thirteen years, Snow established contacts with many important people and won extraordinary personal access to the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. In 1936 he became the first Western journalist to visit the Chinese Red forces and report on a detailed interview with Mao Tse-tung after the completion of the epic Long March.