Assignment China: An Oral History of American Journalists in the People’s Republic

paragraph of this final chapter even seems to throw up its hands at the idea of ever pinning down what criticism is and does. The subtitle of Shame the Devil claims that the press critics profiled within “keep American journalism honest.” But Guglielmo has actually (intentionally or not) written a book that begins to explain how a series of thinkers and writers have shaped educated Americans’ understanding of what the press is and what it does. A book that made that argument explicitly and engaged with these writers and others would be very welcome. This is not quite that book.