Nothing bequeathed to the new Russia by its doomed Soviet predecessor was more positive than the healing of the 35-year rift with China. Wishnick covers particu larly well the intricate story of how this change came about under Mikhail Gor bachev. Her account also includes a pithy summary of the troubled Sino-Soviet relationship from the late 196os through the early 198os, spiced with new memoir and archival material. The emphasis is on the political-strategic dimension of the conflict, including disputed borders, rather than on the fading but still intricate role of ideological differences. All this material provides an important backdrop for the section on Boris Yeltsin, who picked up where Gorbachev left off after an initial pe riod of unease and built an ever-more elaborate Russo-Chinese relationship. Even then, the mutually morose view of U.S. unilateralism and other common causes formed only one part of a many-layered relationship, including the increasingly in tricate dynamic between contiguous Russ ian and Chinese border regions, an area in which Wishnick is particularly expert. Middle East L. CARL BROWN The Foreign Policies ofMiddle Eastern States. EDITED BY RAYMOND A.