Chasing the Dragon

In 1949 the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb, and Eastern Europe had arranged itself into a constellation of communist satellite states, when China-the world's most populous nation-succumbed to what seemed to be an insurmountable tide of communist successes. Dumbfounded, America wanted to know, "who lost China?" Roy Rowan was one of only two living Western journalists who covered the fall of China, and in Chasing The Dragon, he recounts his personal experiences during one of modern history's most tumultuous and significant events. Writing for Life magazine from such datelines as Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing, Shenyang, Taiyuan, and China's Gettysburg-Xuzhou, he watched the horror and spectacle of the world's most oldest continuous civilization tear itself apart as Chairman Mao Zedong's ragtag army saturated the Chinese countryside, choked off major industrial cities, and waited for them to ("fall like ripe melons.") With the fall of each city, Rowan had to plan an emergency evacuation by whatever means possible.