Peter Hessler’s forthcoming book Oracle Bones begins with a story that might as well be a historical footnote. During the US campaign in Yugoslavia, US bombs hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three. The US claimed it was an accident caused by the use of an outdated map. China claimed it was deliberate. There were protests and marches. Then, slowly, it all blew over. Later, stories leaked out that the embassy was the only target selected by the CIA rather than the Pentagon, that the three people killed were probable intelligence officers, that the Chinese embassy had been assisting the Serbs.
What was really happening? Hard to say. The rest of the book ranges from the earliest archeological findings to special economic zones and Falun Gong, but I think that first anecdote really captures Hessler’s method. He attempts to understand what’s happened, but he acknowledges his limitations, and the limitations of his methods and sources.
In many ways, he seems to say, our efforts to understand the present and the past are as incomplete as the predictions of the future that ancient Chinese made with the oracle bones that give the book its title. They give us some kind of reassurance that we know and control our environment– but it’s not complete by any means.
Hessler’s details and adventures are sometimes touching and sometimes hilarious, but always fascinating.
Secretly Ironic 