American incredulity attending the Moscow-Peking split which finally became obvious during this past year, was, according to Mr. Schwartz, due to Washington's ignorant faith in a simple but false syllogism derived from the Cold War. That war, or non-war, or non-peace, has actually been ended by this split, he maintains, and his central thesis here is this: ""The Sino-Soviet alliance was an unnatural one because the fundamental interests of those two nations were and are far more opposed than coincident"". The Russian and Chinese differences are ethnic and economic as well as ideological, and they run very deep and very far back in history. This book is a comprehensive history of these nations' troubled relations from 1650 to the present day. This author knows his subject thoroughly and writes about it in clear, readable language. His optimism seems founded upon an extremely realistic assessment of all available data, and one can only hope that U.S. policy makers will give it all the attention it deserves, so that not just America but the world at large may profit from a fission in the Communist bloc which Mr. Schwartz compares, in its historical significance, with that instigated in Christianity by Martin Luther.