When I was a kid, we had a set of 1962 World Book encyclopedias that I used for every school project. Unfortunately, this meant some of the information I included in papers and presentations was a little bit dated (and tragically optimistic about the bright future of the Kennedy administration, now that I think about it). Often, it didn’t matter very much– the Great Wall of China, for instance, has been doing pretty much the same thing since the Ming dynasty patched it up in the 1460s. Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be said about the Chinese government. You can only tell your classmates about the “recent” communist threat so many times before your teacher starts questioning your research methods.

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