As Italy tends to be studied increasingly in transnational and transcultural perspective, there is an ever-greater need for studies that explore the country's relationship with other geographical areas and cultural configurations. Linetto Basilone's work is an important contribution to research of this kind. The work provides a panoramic view of how journalists and travel writers from the late nineteenth century to the 1980s have sought to represent China, its relationship with Italy, and its growing geopolitical significance. The ideological and cultural context in which Italian observers were writing is always appropriately foregrounded; the analysis of the work of individual writers is nuanced and sophisticated; and the exploration of the inter-relation of different positionalities is intriguing throughout. The text will be of interest to anyone interested in understanding the cultural history of Italy's relationship with China