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This groundbreaking book examines the treatment of veterans of the People's Liberation Army and military families as an illuminating window into Chinese patriotism, citizenship, and legitimacy. Using a wealth of recently declassified archival documents and employing a wide comparative perspective, Neil J. Diamant presents the first large-scale study of these groups in comparison to similar populations in other parts of Asia and in the West. He offers an unprecedented look at the "everyday interactions" among veterans, military families, state officials, and ordinary citizens as they attempted to secure urban residence, jobs, spouses, medical care, and respect. Often celebrated by the governm...
China was afflicted by a brutal succession of conflicts through much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Yet there has never been clear understanding of how wartime suffering has defined the nation and shaped its people. In Beyond Suffering, a distinguished group of historians of modern China look beyond the geopolitical aspects of war to explore its social, institutional, and cultural dimensions. The chapters in Part 1, “Society at War,” reveal how militarization and war can both structure and destabilize society, while those in Part 2, “Institutional Engagement,” show how institutions and the people they represent can become pawns in larger power struggles. Lastly, Part 3, “Memory and Representation,” examines the various media, monuments, and social controls by which war has been memorialized. Based on fragmented accounts of poorly understood incidents, Beyond Suffering pieces together a fuller picture of the multiple fronts on which wars in modern China have been fought, experienced, and remembered.
In 1931, Japan began a brutal occupation of Manchuria, and in 1937, China and Japan entered a full-scale war that ended with Japan’s defeat in 1945. The War of Resistance became the Chinese experience of the Second World War. Yet women scarcely get a mention in most accounts of the fourteen-year conflict. Through interviews, published reminiscences, and oral histories, Not Just a Man’s War uncovers the extraordinary stories of ordinary Chinese women during the war. Communist women speak of fighting as soldiers for “a good war” and contributing to the party’s rise to power. Nationalist women attribute their survival to the strength of the human spirit while acknowledging tremendous ...
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 char...
In 1949 Mao Zedong hoisted the red flag over Beijing's Forbidden City. Instead of liberating the country, the communists destroyed the old order and replaced it with a repressive system that would dominate every aspect of Chinese life. In an epic of revolution and violence which draws on newly opened party archives, interviews and memoirs, Frank Dikotter interweaves the stories of millions of ordinary people with the brutal politics of Mao's court. A gripping account of how people from all walks of life were caught up in a tragedy that sent at least five million civilians to their deaths.
Publisher Description
"The most devastating war in human history continues to generate substantial interest, and though much has been written on the subject, the history of the Second World War is still very much a work in progress. The availability of new sources and innovative approaches offer new perspectives on key turning points in the origins, course, and consequences of the conflict"--
The definitive history of traditional Scottish Gaelic bagpiping.
When Japan invaded China in 1937, Chinese journalists greeted the news with euphoria, convinced their countrymen, led by Chiang Kai-shek, would triumph. Parks Coble shows that correspondents underplayed China’s defeats for fear of undercutting morale and then saw their writings disappear and themselves denounced after the Communists came to power.
Walter Judd : Cold War crusader -- Clarence Adams & Morris Wills : searching for utopia -- Joan Hinton & Sid Engst : true believers -- Chen-ning Yang : science and patriotism -- J. Stapleton Roy : art of diplomacy -- Jerome & Joan Cohen : charting new frontiers -- Elizabeth Perry : legacy of protest -- Shirley Young : joint ventures -- John Kamm : negotiating human rights -- Melinda Liu : reporting the China story.