Scholar and diplomat Brian L. Evans gives us the first English-language biography of Chester A. Ronning (1894-1984): diplomat, politician, educator, and one of Canada's major public figures. This fascinating story depicts Ronning, the man who received many honours, and deepens readers' knowledge of Canada's post-World War II diplomacy and Canada-China relations. Ronning was an extraordinary Canadian who combined Chinese sensibility with Norwegian calm practicality and American drive. His life journey was entwined with the history of China over many decades. Based on written materials, historical documents, and many hours of interviews with Ronning, his friends, and fellow politicians, The Remarkable Chester Ronning offers both a thorough and entertaining biography and a lens through which to view international politics.

Chester Ronning’s life story offers a candid view of Canada’s post-WWII diplomacy and China relations.

"Make yourself big when you enter a room, when you meet a bear in the woods. Make yourself big. Meet the eyes." Roger Epp's poetic meditations about the best, the hardest, the loneliest times of leading a small university campus through significant change are depicted in a series of elegant yet understated prose pieces, alongside images by his life partner, Rhonda Harder Epp. Taking a candid look at the many challenges such a position brings, Roger Epp humanizes, scrutinizes, and upholds the integrity of academic administrative work. Only Leave a Trace will resonate with those who work in universities, hold leadership roles in them, or care about the connections between higher education, students, and place.

When the Reverend Halvor Ronning, his sister Thea, and fellow missionary Hannah Rorem set out in 1891 to found a Lutheran mission and school in the interior of China, they could not have foreseen the ways in which that decision would ripple across generations of the Ronning family. Halvor and Hannah would marry, and their son Chester, born in Hubei Province in 1894, would spend over half his life in China as a student, teacher, and a Canadian diplomat. Chester's daughter, Audrey, studied at Nanking University during the Chinese Civil War and later spent decades reporting on the People's Republic of China for the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and many other publications. "During the last century," Audrey Topping notes, "a member of our family was there for almost every event of importance." China Mission presents a personal history of her family's ties to their adopted home and the momentous events that radically changed one of the most powerful countries in the world. The Ronnings found Imperial China at the end of the nineteenth century to be a nation on the cusp of change, and they were swept up as both observers and participants in these dramatic events. During their years as missionaries, the Ronnings witnessed the Boxer Uprising in 1898, the subsequent Palace Coup and the Siege of Peking, the death of the last emperor, and the collapse of China's dynasty system. They also endured personal challenges -- famine, births, deaths, and the almost constant threat of attack -- that were countered with songs, celebrations, friendship, and a deep appreciation for the culture of which they had become a part. Later, Chester Ronning would return to China, as would his daughter Audrey, bringing their family's story to the end of the twentieth century. This extraordinary account, compiled from the diaries, letters, and photographs of three generations, offers modern readers a rare and remarkable look at a world long gone.

When the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, the Canadian government refused to recognize it, centering its China policy over the next 20 years on the Nationalist Chinese government in Taiwan, keeping one eye always on the much larger and lesser known republic. Evans and Frolic have collected 10 original essays on Canada's relations with the larger China between 1949 and 1971, when Canada officially recognized the PRC. An introduction by Evans sets the context. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR