Life
photographer Birns was sent to Shanghai in the aftermath of WWII, as the Communist revolution in China gathered steam. The 100 tritones gathered in this 9"×13¼" book, with an introduction by Orville Schell, capture troop movements, child mortality, poverty, American servicemen at an American bar, the severing and mounting of a Communist guerrilla's head, evacuations, executions in public parks, farmers being denied access to the city, "foreigners relax[ing] after tennis as the Communists draw closer"—and much more. (Oct.)