Neville Maxwell, an Australian, began his career in journalism after taking degrees at McGill and Cambridge universities; first working at The Age in Melbourne, and then joining The Times in London as a foreign correspondent, serving first in the Washington bureau (1956-9), and then for eight years as South Asia Correspondent, based in Delhi. He left that post in 1967 to re-study the Sino-Indian border dispute-which he had covered for The Times from its emergence-as a Senior Fellow at the London School of Oriental and African Studies. The outcome of this, in 1970, was his revisionist and definitive work India's China War, correcting his original misreading, and, in its immediate and lasting international effect, reversing the almost universally-held misapprehension that China was the aggressor in that conflict. He did not return to full-time journalism but went on to Oxford University as a Senior Research Fellow (1970-93), teaching politics and international relations and continuing his research on China's foreign policy, publishing widely on the Sino-Soviet boundary dispute and other aspects of Beijing's policies. Retired, he lives in Australia and continues to write on international affairs.

This diverse collection of papers ranges from full historical accounts to sharp battle-field reports, from Mao Zedung's musings on war to the machinations of wily British politicians bent on breaking their word. The study of China's dealings with border problems through the centuries shows imperial aggressions, bluff and deceit, cartographic trickery, diplomatic forgeries, wilful follies and stubborn refusal to correct mistaken policies. There is, however, a brighter side too, with an occasional statesman-like reversal of stance, and examples of patient, persistent negotiation undoing intractable knots of contention. Within the clash of states, there appears the human element of accident, the errant botanist whose hunger for new plants ultimately sparks war, the lords of the imperial marches whose land-grabs and deceits stand revealed in the long run; low political ambitions undoing carefully negotiated treaties. All of this throws light on one of the most important questions of the day: the character of the People's Republic of China as an actor in international affairs.