Douglas Fetherling arrived in Moscow with a roving commission from Canada's oldest daily newspaper. Within days, he found himself taking part in the May Day parade in Red Square. Year of the Horse: a Journey Through Russia and China is actually two books. It is a personal travel narrative in the tradition of British writing between the wars, an account of a gruelling trek across Russia and through China to Bangkok, concluding with an inside look at one of the refugee camps in Hong Kong: a story rich in incident and telling description. But it is also a startling document that freezes for inspection a starting point in modern political history - the spring of 1990, when the rise of democracy transformed the Soviet Union and resistance to democracy revealed the soul of the People's Republic of China.