Assignment: Shanghai: Photographs on the Eve of Revolution (Series in Contemporary Photography)
"Despite the high esthetic value and poignancy of the images in Assignment Shanghai, most were buried because of political sensitivities at the time. To put it bluntly, Birns portrayed all too accurately China's troubled state on the eve of the communist victory in 1949. . . . In fact, the pictures in Assignment Shanghai are notable for their foreshadowing of events to come. . . . They certainly help us make sense of China's political traumas in a way that earlier readers would no doubt have welcomed, too."--"Newsweek International"