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.
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.
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 704 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.
Download or read book Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai Shek written by Basil Miller and published by . This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a new release of the original 1943 edition.
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 850 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.
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.
Download or read book Generalissimo Stalin written by Boris Gorbachevskiĭ and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new book from the author of Through the Maelstrom: A Red Army Soldier's War on the Eastern Front reveals a bitter truth about that war, which has thrown neo-Stalinists in Russia today into a fury. A frontline veteran who survived the most savage and continuous fighting of the Second World War refutes one of the primary Soviet myths: that it was Stalin's "brilliant strategic mind" and his "invaluable contributions" that brought about the eventual victory. Partially relying on his own frontline experience in fighting from Rzhev 1942 to Königsburg 1945, the author argues that the Red Army emerged victorious from the war in spite of the Kremlin tyrant, who never spared his soldiers' lives and who recognized only one strategy: to break the Wehrmacht's resistance by overloading it with the corpses of Red Army soldiers. He maintains that it was the people who won the war, but Stalin stole the mantle of victory and donned it himself after the war. Gorbachevsky goes on to argue that the Soviet regime and recent official Russian estimates deliberately understated the staggering true cost of that victory, and reveals the scandalous official mistreatment of returning prisoners-of-war, neglect of war invalids and disregard of the millions of soldiers' remains lying in shallow, unmarked, often fraternal graves and the millions more still listed as "missing-in-action" - all of which show the Stalinist system's disdain for human life.
Download or read book The China Mission George Marshall s Unfinished War 1945 1947 written by Daniel Kurtz-Phelan and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Economist Best Book of 2018 New York Times Book Review Editor’s Pick “Gripping [and] splendid.… An enormous contribution to our understanding of Marshall.”—Washington Post At the end of World War II, General George Marshall took on what he thought was a final mission—this time not to win a war, but to stop one. In China, conflict between Communists and Nationalists threatened to suck in the United States and escalate into revolution. Marshall’s charge was to cross the Pacific, broker a peace, and prevent a Communist takeover, all while staving off World War III. At first, the results seemed miraculous. But as they started to come apart, Marshall was faced with a wrenching choice—one that would alter the course of the Cold War, define the US-China relationship, and spark one of the darkest-ever turns in American political life. The China Mission offers a gripping, close-up view of the central figures of the time—from Marshall, Mao, and Chiang Kai-shek to Eisenhower, Truman, and MacArthur—as they stood face-to-face and struggled to make history, with consequences and lessons that echo today.
Download or read book Taiwan A New History written by Murray A. Rubinstein and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-12 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a comprehensive portrait of Taiwan. It covers the major periods in the development of this small but powerful island province/nation. The work is designed in the style of the multi-volume "Cambridge History of China".
Download or read book Madame Chiang Kai shek written by Laura Tyson Li and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first biography of one of the most controversial and fascinating women of the twentieth century. Beautiful, brilliant, and captivating, Madame Chiang Kai-shek seized unprecedented power during China’s long and violent civil war. She passionately argued against Chinese Communism in the international arena and influenced decades of Sino-American relations and modern Chinese history. Raised in one of China’s most powerful families and educated at Wellesley College, Soong Mayling went on to become wife, chief adviser, interpreter, and propagandist to Nationalist leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. She sparred with international leaders like Churchill and Roosevelt, and impressed Westerners and Chinese alike with her acumen, charm, and glamour. But she was also decried as a manipulative Dragon Lady,” and despised for living in American-style splendor while Chinese citizens suffered under her husband’s brutal oppression. The result of years of extensive research in the United States and abroad, and written with access to previously classified CIA and diplomatic files, Madame Chiang Kai-shek objectively evaluates one of the most powerful and fascinating women of the twentieth century. “Li brilliantly analyzes a fearless and profoundly conflicted woman of extraordinary force.” —Booklist
Download or read book The Flying Tigers written by Sam Kleiner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-03-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thrilling story behind the American pilots who were secretly recruited to defend the nation’s desperate Chinese allies before Pearl Harbor and ended up on the front lines of the war against the Japanese in the Pacific. Sam Kleiner’s The Flying Tigers uncovers the hidden story of the group of young American men and women who crossed the Pacific before Pearl Harbor to risk their lives defending China. Led by legendary army pilot Claire Chennault, these men left behind an America still at peace in the summer of 1941 using false identities to travel across the Pacific to a run-down airbase in the jungles of Burma. In the wake of the disaster at Pearl Harbor this motley crew was the first group of Americans to take on the Japanese in combat, shooting down hundreds of Japanese aircraft in the skies over Burma, Thailand, and China. At a time when the Allies were being defeated across the globe, the Flying Tigers’ exploits gave hope to Americans and Chinese alike. Kleiner takes readers into the cockpits of their iconic shark-nosed P-40 planes—one of the most familiar images of the war—as the Tigers perform nail-biting missions against the Japanese. He profiles the outsize personalities involved in the operation, including Chennault, whose aggressive tactics went against the prevailing wisdom of military strategy; Greg “Pappy” Boyington, the man who would become the nation’s most beloved pilot until he was shot down and became a POW; Emma Foster, one of the nurses in the unit who had a passionate romance with a pilot named John Petach; and Madame Chiang Kai-shek herself, who first brought Chennault to China and who would come to visit these young Americans. A dramatic story of a covert operation whose very existence would have scandalized an isolationist United States, The Flying Tigers is the unforgettable account of a group of Americans whose heroism changed the world, and who cemented an alliance between the United States and China as both nations fought against seemingly insurmountable odds.
Download or read book Forgotten Ally written by Rana Mitter and published by HMH. This book was released on 2013-09-10 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the Chinese experience in WWII, named a Book of the Year by both the Economist and the Financial Times: “Superb” (The New York Times Book Review). In 1937, two years before Hitler invaded Poland, Chinese troops clashed with Japanese occupiers in the first battle of World War II. Joining with the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, China became the fourth great ally in a devastating struggle for its very survival. In this book, prize-winning historian Rana Mitter unfurls China’s drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue as never before. Based on groundbreaking research, this gripping narrative focuses on a handful of unforgettable characters, including Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong, and Chiang’s American chief of staff, “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell—and also recounts the sacrifice and resilience of everyday Chinese people through the horrors of bombings, famines, and the infamous Rape of Nanking. More than any other twentieth-century event, World War II was crucial in shaping China’s worldview, making Forgotten Ally both a definitive work of history and an indispensable guide to today’s China and its relationship with the West.
Download or read book Spymaster written by Frederic Wakeman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-06-03 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wakeman's authoritative biography of the ruthlessly powerful man who led the Chinese Secret Service during the violent and tumultuous period after the fall of the Imperial system.
Download or read book The China Mirage written by James Bradley and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2015-04-21 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of Flags of our Fathers, Flyboys, and The Imperial Cruise, a spellbinding history of turbulent U.S.-China relations from the 19th century to World War II and Mao's ascent. In each of his books, James Bradley has exposed the hidden truths behind America's engagement in Asia. Now comes his most engrossing work yet. Beginning in the 1850s, Bradley introduces us to the prominent Americans who made their fortunes in the China opium trade. As they -- -good Christians all -- -profitably addicted millions, American missionaries arrived, promising salvation for those who adopted Western ways. And that was just the beginning. From drug dealer Warren Delano to his grandson Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from the port of Hong Kong to the towers of Princeton University, from the era of Appomattox to the age of the A-Bomb, The China Mirage explores a difficult century that defines U.S.-Chinese relations to this day.
Download or read book Chiang Kai Shek s Politics of Shame written by Grace C. Huang and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grace C. Huang reconsiders Chiang Kai-shek's leadership and legacy in an intriguing new portrait of this twentieth-century leader. Comparing his response to imperialism to those of Mao, Yuan Shikai, and Mahatma Gandhi, Huang widens the implications of her findings to explore alternatives to Western expressions of nationalism and modernity.
Download or read book China 1945 written by Richard Bernstein and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the beginning of 1945, relations between America and the Chinese Communists couldn’t have been closer. Chinese leaders talked of America helping to lift China out of poverty; Mao Zedong himself held friendly meetings with U.S. emissaries. By year’s end, Chinese Communist soldiers were setting ambushes for American marines; official cordiality had been replaced by chilly hostility and distrust, a pattern which would continue for a quarter century, with the devastating wars in Korea and Vietnam among the consequences. In China 1945, Richard Bernstein tells the incredible story of the sea change that took place during that year—brilliantly analyzing its far-reaching components and colorful characters, from diplomats John Paton Davies and John Stewart Service to Time journalist, Henry Luce; in addition to Mao and his intractable counterpart, Chiang Kai-shek, and the indispensable Zhou Enlai. A tour de force of narrative history, China 1945 examines American power coming face-to-face with a formidable Asian revolutionary movement, and challenges familiar assumptions about the origins of modern Sino-American relations.
Download or read book Franco written by Geoffrey Jensen and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2005-04-30 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before becoming one of the longest-ruling dictators of the twentieth century, Francisco Franco commanded troops in the kinds of wars that have since become all too familiar. He not only waged vicious counterinsurgency campaigns against Muslim warlords and defiant tribes in Morocco, but he also led a multinational force to victory in Europe's "dress rehearsal" for World War II--the Spanish Civil War. Born into a military family in 1892, Francisco Franco first made a name for himself leading attacks against rebellious Moroccan warlords and tribesmen and by 1926 was promoted to brigadier general. His role in the ruthless suppression of the 1934 revolution by coal miners in Asturias sealed his reputation for brutality, although Franco saw it as simply carrying out an order in the most efficient manner possible. In 1936, as head of Spain's formidable Army of Africa, Franco joined a military revolt against the Popular Front government of the republic. He quickly secured the support of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, touching off more than two years of bloody civil war. Within months of the wars outbreak he became generalissimo and head of state of the rebel camp, and in 1939 Britain and France recognized him as the legitimate ruler of Spain. He then outlasted fellow dictators Hitler and Stalin by decades, dying in 1975 at the helm of the same regime he had established in Spain before the Second World War. In this engaging and concise introduction to the generalissimo's life on and off the battlefield, Geoffrey Jensen makes clear how Franco's military experiences helped shape the character of his dictatorship and its repressive policies.
