The Week that Changed the World - Book Report/Review Example

President Nixon called the week as “A week that changed the world” and MacMillan has made it the subtitle of “Nixon and Mao.” Although Nixon, made the situation of the United States worse to the involvement of the Vietnam War, by the year 1973 he ended also the involvement. As soon as he stepped onto the airport of Beijing, grasping the hands of the Prime Minister Zhou En-lai and had a meeting with the most prominent Communist Revolutionary, Mao Zedong, this helped the war to be ended.

MacMillan retells the stay of President Nixon in China for a week. The visit of the president made a great history of great revival and diplomacy among these two countries. But before this situation happened, this all started when the Chinese invited the Ping Pong Americans team for a tournament. People from all over the world saw how the Chinese people welcomed and appreciated the Americans team into that tournament despite the fact that there is a bitter hostility between the two countries.

The book is just like a real life situation wherein MacMillan was able to deliver the story starting from the endless state banquets and private talks between President Nixon and Chinese Prime Minister Zhou En-lai. MacMillan was able to deliver it in a skillful manner. . She also mentioned about the decisions made in the year 1958 but didn’t mention about the happenings in the year 1954-1955. The said years are important happenings because it has something to do with the Soviet concerns on the behavior of Mao, and also the commitment of the American to the country Taiwan and which was also discussed during the 1972 Beijing visit.

The story is quite confusing because the story weren’t written in a chronological order. Instead of describing a situation that happened in the story a lot of flash backs were also given. For example, MacMillan was telling about the motorcade, and suddenly she explained how China became a Communist country. She also talked about the relationship of Nixon and Kissinger before the continuation of her story about the motorcade. MacMillan tried hard to find out more information about China like the personalities of these great leaders, the people around, their culture and the nature such as The Great Wall but she fails to give much information how this 1972 visit changed the world.

The book of MacMillan is also admirable in the sense that she exposed the secrets behind the multiple deaths and imprisonments of some Chinese people and Americans. She was brave enough to expose the people behind this brutality. She was also able to show how the visit made successful through Nixon and Kissinger despite of how much secretive they were from their allies, the people on the media and from their advisers regarding the visit. She was able also to give the people some information of the conversation between the two parties.

We can see from most of the television coverage that were released that people in the media were upset that no leakages were brought out regarding