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    Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the China He Lost
    Unavailable
    Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the China He Lost
    Unavailable
    Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the China He Lost
    Ebook896 pages18 hours

    Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the China He Lost

    By Jonathan Fenby

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    About this ebook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster UK
    Release dateFeb 12, 2015
    ISBN9781471142956
    Unavailable
    Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the China He Lost
    Author

    Jonathan Fenby

    Jonathan Fenby is a former editor of the Observer, The South China Morning Post, and is a guest on many American news sites, including CNN. He is the author of several books including the acclaimed On the Brink: The Trouble with France and Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-Shek and the China He Lost. In 2013 Jonathan was awarded the Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur by the French government for his contribution towards understanding between Britain and France.

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    Reviews for Generalissimo

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      The way the story is written brings characters and the atmosphere vividly to life.
    • 2/5
      Clunky, chunky, train of facts about war lord fights. They all seem alike. I like analysis or stories--not fact lists. I like Taylor's "Generalissimo" much better.
    • 4/5
      I was on the verge of setting this book aside, due to its sometimes lurid flavor with relatively little solid documentation, but Jonathan Spence's review in the "New York Times" made me continue, and I'm glad I did. While specialists will already be familiar with most of the materials that Fenby used in his life and times of the Generalissimo, this seems to be about as good a biography that one is going to get under the current circumstances; the prime virtue being that sufficient time has passed to allow a little perspective on the man's virtues, vices and achievements.Considering that Chiang is usually considered one of the great losers of the 20th century, Fenby does credit him with one salient achievement; holding together a form of China that could at least play a limited role in the world, even if that China was tainted by too much expediency and denied sufficient time to become coherent. If this seems like damning with faint praise, Fenby suggests that one consider the counterfactual of a fragmented China exploited by Japan to achieve strategic depth, and in alliance with Nazi Germany against Soviet Russia. Fenby's epithat for Chiang could be that he "...condemned himself to be a prisoner of his context instead of rising about it."As for the writing itself, the tone and style are journalistic as opposed to scholarly, and if one wants to mark down Fenby for anything it's that he never skips the opportunity to trot out a juicy anecdote, though he is forthright about the limitations of his material. At least you won't be bored.