Wandering Knights

While serving in China during WW II, Barnett, then a U.S. Army Air Force lieutenant, formed a friendship with a young historian named Sun Yutang, which, 37 years later, in 1981, they were finally able to renew in America. They caught up on each other's news and resumed their discussions on ``Chineseness,'' on ``the unmistakable style, behavior, and social structure'' of China. Sun had paid dearly for his earlier association with Barnett: in 1952, in '57, and again in '68 during the Cultural Revolution, he was forced to confess to this ideological ``crime.'' The author had parallel troubles of his own: in 1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy charged him with ``definite Communistic connections,'' and he was subpoenaed to testify before a congressional committee. Perhaps the most memorable aspect of this deeply felt memoir is the re-creation of talks between Barnett, a retired diplomat, and the late Sun about individual freedom in China. According to Sun the Chinese have difficulty understanding the American concept of that term, or of human rights. (May)