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Book The Generalissimo s Son

    Book Details:
  • Author : Jay Taylor
  • Publisher : Harvard University Press
  • Release : 2009-06-01
  • ISBN : 9780674044227
  • Pages : 556 pages

Download or read book The Generalissimo s Son written by Jay Taylor and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chiang Ching-kuo, son and political heir of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, was born in 1910, when Chinese women, nearly all illiterate, hobbled about on bound feet and men wore pigtails as symbols of subservience to the Manchu Dynasty. In his youth Ching-kuo was a Communist and a Trotskyite, and he lived twelve years in Russia. He died in 1988 as the leader of Taiwan, a Chinese society with a flourishing consumer economy and a budding but already wild, woolly, and open democracy. He was an actor in many of the events of the last century that shaped the history of China's struggles and achievements in the modern era: the surge of nationalism among Chinese youth, the grand appeal of Marxism-Leninism, the terrible battle against fascist Japan, and the long, destructive civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists. In 1949, he fled to Taiwan with his father and two million Nationalists. He led the brutal suppression of dissent on the island and was a major player in the cold, sometimes hot war between Communist China and America. By reacting to changing economic, social, and political dynamics on Taiwan, Sino-American rapprochement, Deng Xiaoping's sweeping reforms on the mainland, and other international events, he led Taiwan on a zigzag but ultimately successful transition from dictatorship to democracy. Jay Taylor underscores the interaction of political developments on the mainland and in Taiwan and concludes that if China ever makes a similar transition, it will owe much to the Taiwan example and the Generalissimo's son.

Book The Generalissimo

Download or read book The Generalissimo written by Jay Taylor and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-15 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most momentous stories of the last century is China’s rise from a self-satisfied, anti-modern, decaying society into a global power that promises to one day rival the United States. Chiang Kai-shek, an autocratic, larger-than-life figure, dominates this story. A modernist as well as a neo-Confucianist, Chiang was a man of war who led the most ancient and populous country in the world through a quarter century of bloody revolutions, civil conflict, and wars of resistance against Japanese aggression. In 1949, when he was defeated by Mao Zedong—his archrival for leadership of China—he fled to Taiwan, where he ruled for another twenty-five years. Playing a key role in the cold war with China, Chiang suppressed opposition with his “white terror,” controlled inflation and corruption, carried out land reform, and raised personal income, health, and educational levels on the island. Consciously or not, he set the stage for Taiwan’s evolution of a Chinese model of democratic modernization. Drawing heavily on Chinese sources including Chiang’s diaries, The Generalissimo provides the most lively, sweeping, and objective biography yet of a man whose length of uninterrupted, active engagement at the highest levels in the march of history is excelled by few, if any, in modern history. Jay Taylor shows a man who was exceedingly ruthless and temperamental but who was also courageous and conscientious in matters of state. Revealing fascinating aspects of Chiang’s life, Taylor provides penetrating insight into the dynamics of the past that lie behind the struggle for modernity of mainland China and its relationship with Taiwan.

Book Chiang Kai Shek

Download or read book Chiang Kai Shek written by Jonathan Fenby and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2009-04-27 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a narrative as briskly paced and vividly detailed as an international thriller, this definitive biography of Chiang Kai-shek masterfully maps the tumultuous political career of Nationalist China's generalissimo as it reevaluates his brave but unfulfilled life. Chiang Kai-shek was one of the most influential world figures of the twentieth century. The leader of the Kuomintang, the Nationalist movement in China, by 1928 he had established himself as head of the government in Nanking. But while he managed to survive the political storms of the 1930s, Chiang's power was continually being undermined by the Japanese on one side and the Chinese Communists on the other. Drawing extensively on original Chinese sources and accounts by contemporaneous journalists, acclaimed author Jonathan Fenby explores little-known international connections in Chiang's story as he unfolds a story as fascinating in its conspiratorial intrigues as it is remarkable for its psychological insights. This is the definitive biography of the man who, despite his best intentions, helped create modern-day China.

Book Generalissimos of the Western Roman Empire

Download or read book Generalissimos of the Western Roman Empire written by John M. O'Flynn and published by University of Alberta. This book was released on 1983 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Micheal O'Flynn traces the development of the position of the generalissimo, or emperor's commander of the military forces, in the western part of the Roman Empire during the first century AD. From the arrogant barbarian Arbogast, who treated the youthful emperor Valentinian as his puppet, to Odovacar, who dismissed the last western emperor and was pronounced king of Italy in 476, the generalissimos' seizure of power led to dissolution and chaos from which would emerge the political patterns of medieval and modern Europe.

Book Darwin and Faulkner   s Novels

Download or read book Darwin and Faulkner s Novels written by M. Wainwright and published by Springer. This book was released on 2008-03-31 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Displaying a wide range of knowledge and interpretive skill, Darwin and Faulkner's Novels reexamines the fiction of the great twentieth century American author from the interdisciplinary perspective of sociobiology. Challenging the assumption that Faulkner's South was nothing other than a reactionary wilderness and charting the manner in which Faulkner learned and applied his evolutionary concepts, this book unsettles staid interpretations of the Falknerian canon and overturns habitual judgments as to the value of his later novels.

Book The Last Empress

Download or read book The Last Empress written by Hannah Pakula and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-11-03 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the beautiful, powerful, and sexy Madame Chiang Kai-shek at the center of one of the great dramas of the twentieth century, this is the story of the founding of modern China, starting with a revolution that swept away more than 2,000 years of monarchy, followed by World War II, and ending in the eventual loss to the Communists and exile in Taiwan. An epic historical tapestry, this wonderfully wrought narrative brings to life what Americans should know about China -- the superpower we are inextricably linked with -- the way its people think and their code of behavior, both vastly different from our own. The story revolves around this fascinating woman and her family: her father, a peasant who raised himself into Shanghai society and sent his daughters to college in America in a day when Chinese women were kept purposefully uneducated; her mother, an unlikely Methodist from the Mandarin class; her husband, a military leader and dogmatic warlord; her sisters, one married to Sun Yat-sen, the George Washington of China, the other to a seventy-fifth lineal descendant of Confucius; and her older brother, a financial genius. This was the Soong family, which, along with their partners in marriage, was largely responsible for dragging China into the twentieth century. Brilliantly narrated, this fierce and bloody drama also includes U.S. Army General Joseph Stilwell; Claire Chennault, head of the Flying Tigers; Communist leaders Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai; murderous warlords; journalists Henry Luce, Theodore White, and Edgar Snow; and the unfortunate State Department officials who would be purged for predicting (correctly) the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War. As the representative of an Eastern ally in the West, Madame Chiang was befriended -- before being rejected -- by the Roosevelts, stayed in the White House for long periods during World War II, and charmed the U.S. Congress into giving China billions of dollars. Although she was dubbed the Dragon Lady in some quarters, she was an icon to her people and is certainly one of the most remarkable women of the twentieth century.

Book    A    General Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language  for the Use of Schools Etc on the Plan of Mr  Sheridan

Download or read book A General Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language for the Use of Schools Etc on the Plan of Mr Sheridan written by Stephen Jones and published by . This book was released on 1825 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Generalissimo

    Book Details:
  • Author : Jonathan Fenby
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 2003
  • ISBN : 0743231449
  • Pages : 600 pages

Download or read book Generalissimo written by Jonathan Fenby and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2003 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following his acclaimed studies of the state of modern France and how Hong Kong has changed since the 1997 handover, Jonathan Fenby now turns his attention to one of the most interesting yet under-reported figures of twentieth-century history. Chiang Kai-shek was the man who lost China to the Communists. As leader of the nationalist movement, the Kuomintang, Chiang established himself as head of the government in Nanking in 1928. Yet although he laid claim to power throughout the 1930s and was the only Chinese figure of sufficient stature to attend a conference with Churchill and Roosevelt during the Second World War, his desire for unity was always thwarted by threats on two fronts. Between them, the Japanese and the Communists succeeded in undermining Chiang's power-plays, and after Hiroshima it was Mao Zedong who ended up victorious. Brilliantly re-creating pre-Communist China in all its colour, danger and complexity, Jonathan Fenby's magisterial survey of this brave but unfulfilled life is destined to become the definitive account in the English language.

Book A Theological  Biblical and Ecclesiastical Dictionary  serving as a general note book to illustrate the Old and New Testament  as a guide to the practices and opinions of all sects and religions  and as a cyclop  dia of religious knowledge

Download or read book A Theological Biblical and Ecclesiastical Dictionary serving as a general note book to illustrate the Old and New Testament as a guide to the practices and opinions of all sects and religions and as a cyclop dia of religious knowledge written by John ROBINSON (D.D., Rector of Clifton, Westmoreland.) and published by . This book was released on 1815 with total page 1080 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru  Parts One and Two

Download or read book Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru Parts One and Two written by Garcilaso de la Vega and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-05-12 with total page 1493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The two-part classic history of the Incan empire’s origin and growth, as well as their demise following the arrival of the Spaniards. Garcilaso de la Vega, the first native of the New World to attain importance as a writer in the Old, was born in Cuzco in 1539, the illegitimate son of a Spanish cavalier and an Inca princess. Although he was educated as a gentleman of Spain and won an important place in Spanish letters, Garcilaso was fiercely proud of his Indian ancestry and wrote under the name EI Inca. Royal Commentaries of the Incas is the account of the origin, growth, and destruction of the Inca empire, from its legendary birth until the death in 1572 of its last independent ruler. For the material in Part One of Royal Commentaries—the history of the Inca civilization prior to the arrival of the Spaniards—Garcilaso drew upon “what I often heard as a child from the lips of my mother and her brothers and uncles and other elders . . . [of] the origin of the Inca kings, their greatness, the grandeur of their empire, their deeds and conquests, their government in peace and war, and the laws they ordained so greatly to the advantage of their vassals.” The conventionalized and formal history of an oral tradition, Royal Commentaries describes the gradual imposition of order and civilization upon a primitive and barbaric world. To this Garcilaso adds facts about the geography and the flora and fauna of the land; the folk practices, religion, and superstitions; the agricultural and the architectural and engineering achievements of the people; and a variety of other information drawn from his rich store of traditional knowledge, personal observation, or speculative philosophy. Important though it is as history, Garcilaso’s classic is much more: it is also a work of art. Its gracious and graceful style, skillfully translated by Harold V. Livermore, succeeds in bringing to life for the reader a genuine work of literature.

Book Zhang Xueliang

    Book Details:
  • Author : A. Shai
  • Publisher : Springer
  • Release : 2012-01-17
  • ISBN : 0230348912
  • Pages : 165 pages

Download or read book Zhang Xueliang written by A. Shai and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-01-17 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to tell the strange and fascinating story of General Zhang Xue-liang, the Chinese-Manchurian 'Young Marshall' - a man who left an indelible mark on the history of modern China, but few know his story. Unlocking the mystery of this man's life, Aron Shai helps to shed light on 20th-century China.

Book Foreign Relations of the United States

Download or read book Foreign Relations of the United States written by United States. Dept. of State and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 1220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Foreign Relations of the United States

Download or read book Foreign Relations of the United States written by United States. Department of State and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 1548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book From Hitler to Trujillo

Download or read book From Hitler to Trujillo written by Alfredo F. Vorshirm and published by Bitingduck Press LLC. This book was released on 2000 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Hitler to Trujillo is a memoir by a Holocaust survivor Alfredo Vorshirm. His gripping story embodies the Jewish European experience during and after World War II and dramatizes the events that impelled Vorshirm to the Dominican Republic at the height of the Trujillo dictatorship. Living in Belgium rather than Germany, the country of his birth, when World War II broke out, Vorshirm and his family found themselves imprisoned by the European Allies because they were Austrian-German enemies. Then he was imprisoned by the Germans when he was caught in a raid without legal identification papers and in possession of illegal foreign currency. After being held and tortured in a Gestapo jail for nearly a year, he joined the Italian partisans where he was wounded. He had become separated from his parents who went to Switzerland where they thought they would be safe. Eventually, he served with a unit of the US 82nd Airborne Division and took part in the liberation of Europe. After the war, searching for a homeland, circumstances caused him to choose residence in the Dominican Republic. Vorshirm served the Dominican Republic as a Senior Army Officer in a top post with the Technological Services of the Armed Forces, as a Representative to the UN in New York and Geneva, and as a diplomat in Belgium, until he was abruptly removed and ordered back to the Dominican Republic. For an author bio and photo, reviews and a reading sample, visit bosonbooks.com.

Book Taiwan  the United States  and the Hidden History of the Cold War in Asia

Download or read book Taiwan the United States and the Hidden History of the Cold War in Asia written by Hsiao-Ting Lin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-04-28 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the challenges which faced the United States and Taiwanese alliance during the Cold War, addressing a wide range of events and influences of the period between the 1950s and 1970s. Tackling seven main topics to outline the fluctuations of the U.S.–Taiwan relationship, this volume highlights the impact of the mainland counteroffensive, the offshore islands, Tibet, Taiwan’s secret operations in Asia, Taiwan’s Soviet and nuclear gambits, Chinese representation in the United Nations, and the Vietnam War. Utilizing multinational archival research, particularly the newly available materials from Taiwan and the United States, to reevaluate Taiwan’s foreign policy during the Cold War, revealing a pragmatic and opportunistic foreign policy disguised in nationalistic rhetoric. Moreover, this study represents a departure from previous scholarship, emphasizing the dictatorial and incompetent nature of the Chinese Nationalist regime, to provide fresh insights into the nature of U.S.–Taiwan relations. Presenting a revisionist view of one of the strongest bilateral relationships of the Cold War, this will be an insightful resource for scholars and students of Chinese and East Asia History, Cold War History, Asian Studies, and International Relations.

Book Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State

Download or read book Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State written by Justin M. Jacobs and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2016-04-18 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State views modern Chinese political history from the perspective of Han officials who were tasked with governing Xinjiang. This region, inhabited by Uighurs, Kazaks, Hui, Mongols, Kirgiz, and Tajiks, is also the last significant “colony” of the former Qing empire to remain under continuous Chinese rule throughout the twentieth century. By foregrounding the responses of Chinese and other imperial elites to the growing threat of national determination across Eurasia, Justin Jacobs argues for a reconceptualization of the modern Chinese state as a “national empire.” He shows how strategies for administering this region in the late Qing, Republican, and Communist eras were molded by, and shaped in response to, the rival platforms of ethnic difference characterized by Soviet and other geopolitical competitors across Inner and East Asia. This riveting narrative tracks Xinjiang political history through the Bolshevik revolution, the warlord years, Chinese civil war, and the large-scale Han immigration in the People’s Republic of China, as well as the efforts of the exiled Xinjiang government in Taiwan after 1949 to claim the loyalty of Xinjiang refugees.