Ping-Pong Diplomacy

The Secret History Behind the Game That Changed the World

By: Nicholas Griffin

Narrated by: Tom Burka

The spring of 1971 heralded the greatest geopolitical realignment in a generation. After 22 years of antagonism, China and the United States suddenly moved toward a détente - achieved not by politicians but by ping-pong players. The Western press delighted in the absurdity of the moment and branded it "Ping-Pong Diplomacy". But for the Chinese, ping-pong was always political, a strategic cog in Mao Zedong's foreign policy. Nicholas Griffin proves that the organized game, from its first breath, was tied to Communism thanks to its founder, Ivor Montagu, son of a wealthy English baron and spy for the Soviet Union.

Ping-Pong Diplomacy traces a crucial inter­section of sports and society. Griffin tells the strange and tragic story of how the game was manipulated at the highest levels; how the Chinese government helped cover up the death of 36 million peasants by holding the World Table Tennis Championships during the Great Famine; how championship players were driven to their deaths during the Cultural Revolution; and, finally, how the survivors were reconvened in 1971 and ordered to reach out to their American counterparts. Through a cast of eccentric characters, from spies to hippies and ping-pong-obsessed generals to atom-bomb survivors, Griffin explores how a neglected sport was used to help realign the balance of worldwide power.

©2014 Nicholas Griffin (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

The longest volley ever

This is an excellent piece of history but it’s too long in one of two ways. Either the reader will really enjoy the secret, communist history of ping-pong. Or, the reader will enjoy the part of the story the covers the diplomacy that the title promises. However to put the two together makes it for far too long story. The book bogs down in the middle in endless detail of various players treatment during China’s Cultural Revolution. Even though the many China hands that will read this book may find that bit interesting, the audio performance makes it extremely tedious. It’s strange that the producer did not feel it necessary to find a narrator who is experienced in the contemporary pronunciation of Chinese names. Throughout the book’s reading, the continuous mispronunciation of these names, especially since those names represent some of the story’s central characters, is absolutely grating and takes away from an otherwise engaging history. Perhaps this is one to read rather than to hear.