Washington Post reporter John Pomfret was one of the first American exchange students to attend Nanjiing University in 1981, and he returned to China eight years later as a journalist, which led him to witness first-hand the blood shed at Tiananmen Square eight years later. His Chinese Lessons: A Journey Between Past and Present is a readable account of modern Chinese history. Fluent in Chinese himself, and having immersed himself in the lives of five former classmates, Pomfret’s descriptions of post-Mao China are aided in part by the personal conversations and diary entries he inserts into the text, but the book’s main draw are the clear-eyed discoveries he makes about both the country and its people. He’ll read tomorrow at the Harvard University Fairbanks Center, 1737 Cambridge St, Cambridge | 12:30 pm | free | 617.495.4570.