Synopses & Reviews
The epic, untold story of China's devastating eight-year war of resistance against Japan.
For decades, a major piece of World War II history has gone virtually unwritten. The war began in China, two years before Hitler invaded Poland, and China eventually became the fourth great ally, partner to the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. Yet its drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue remains little known in the West.
Rana Mitter focuses his gripping narrative on three towering leaders: Chiang Kai-shek, the politically gifted but tragically flawed head of China's Nationalist government; Mao Zedong, the Communists fiery ideological stalwart, seen here at the beginning of his epochal career; and the lesser-known Wang Jingwei, who collaborated with the Japanese to form a puppet state in occupied China. Drawing on Chinese archives that have only been unsealed in the past ten years, he brings to vivid new life such characters as Chiang's American chief of staff, the unforgettable “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, and such horrific events as the Rape of Nanking and the bombing of China's wartime capital, Chongqing. Throughout, Forgotten Ally shows how the Chinese people played an essential role in the wider war effort, at great political and personal sacrifice.
Forgotten Ally rewrites the entire history of World War II. Yet it also offers surprising insights into contemporary China. No twentieth-century event was as crucial in shaping China's worldview, and no one can understand China, and its relationship with America today, without this definitive work.
Review
"It is a remarkable story, told with humanity and intelligence; all historians of the second world war will be in Mitter's debt...Mitter explores this complex politics with remarkable clarity and economy....No one could ask for a better guide than Mitter to how that story began in the cauldron of the Chinese war." The Guardian
Review
"Restor[es] a vital part of the wartime narrative to its rightful place. . . . A remarkable story, told with humanity and intelligence; all historians of the second world war will be in Mitters debt. . . . No one could ask for a better guide." - Richard Overy, Guardian (London)
"The best narrative of that long-ago war, whose effects still linger in China today." - Jonathan Mirsky, The Spectator (London)
"Illuminating and meticulously researched. . . . It is the voice of the Chinese [. . .] that gives the distinctive tone to Mitters narrative. From the diaries of Chiang Kai-shek to those of national journalists and middle-class Chinese fleeing the conflict, these first-person observations are woven skillfully into his chronicle of the battles and struggles." -The Economist "Rana Mitter's history of the Sino-Japanese War is not only a very important book, but it also has a wonderful clarity of thought and prose which makes it a pleasure to read." - Antony Beevor, author of The Second World War and Stalingrad "This is the best study of China's war with Japan (1937-1945) written in any language. It is comprehensive, thoroughly researched, and objective. . . . For anyone interested in how China helped shape today's world, this is a must-read." - Akira Iriye, Charles Warren Professor of History (emeritus), Harvard University "Gripping...He shows that...the east Asian conflict shaped both the outcomes of the second world war and the development of the postwar world." - The Observer
"An important, timely contribution to shedding light where there is currently much darkness... Mitter s book demonstrates why to this day the Chinese view Japan with such animosity." -- The Financial Times
"Mitter has done an important service both in pulling together the complex narrative threads of this period and in reminding readers of Chinas vital and largely neglected contribution to the Allied war effort... Mitters excellent history tells us why we need to remember it." -- The New Statesman
Review
"Rana Mitters brilliant new book, Forgotten Ally: Chinas War with Japan, 1937-1945, makes an important and moving contribution to the historical record by illuminating the largely forgotten war that took the lives of millions of Chinese, yet ultimately facilitated the rise of modern China." -- Dr. Henry A. Kissinger "Rana Mitter's history of the Sino-Japanese War . . . is a major contribution to the one aspect of the Second World War of which we know far too little, and should know much more if we are to understand the new superpower today. It is a model of clarity and good writing." — Antony Beevor, Times (UK)
"Restor[es] a vital part of the wartime narrative to its rightful place. . . . A remarkable story, told with humanity and intelligence; all historians of the second world war will be in Mitters debt. . . . No one could ask for a better guide." - Richard Overy, Guardian (London)
"The best narrative of that long-ago war, whose effects still linger in China today." - Jonathan Mirsky, The Spectator (London)
"Illuminating and meticulously researched. . . . It is the voice of the Chinese [. . .] that gives the distinctive tone to Mitters narrative. From the diaries of Chiang Kai-shek to those of national journalists and middle-class Chinese fleeing the conflict, these first-person observations are woven skillfully into his chronicle of the battles and struggles." -The Economist "Forgotten Ally is a breathtaking chronicle of Chinas war with Japan from 1937 to 1945, a major theater of World War II whose story most Western readers have never heard in full -- certainly not as Mitter interprets it here. Authoritative and epic, pulsing with life, this is a grand vision of Chinas transformation through the cataclysm of war in the twentieth century." -- Stephen R. Platt, author of Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom "Gripping...He shows that...the east Asian conflict shaped both the outcomes of the second world war and the development of the postwar world." - The Observer
"An important, timely contribution to shedding light where there is currently much darkness... Mitter s book demonstrates why to this day the Chinese view Japan with such animosity." -- The Financial Times
"Mitter has done an important service both in pulling together the complex narrative threads of this period and in reminding readers of Chinas vital and largely neglected contribution to the Allied war effort... Mitters excellent history tells us why we need to remember it." -- The New Statesman "Rana Mitter has written a masterly account of the war, which blends wide deep scholarship with an accessible narrative...Mitter's great achievement is to have encompassed a multi-faceted story in a readable, coherent and gripping manner" - Jonathan Fenby, The Times "This monumental new work by Oxford University professor Rana Mitter magisterially surveys this conflict, the broader repercussions of which still resonate across East Asia." -- South China Morning Post "For decades, argues Rana Mitter in his superb new book, western readers have known too little about China's suffering....Mitter offers a lucid and moving account of the conflict's staggering military tragedies. But it is also a first-rate political and social history if China's wartime years....Mitter's elegant, rigorous and balanced account is an ideal guide to traumas that continue to cast a long shadow over the region." -- TheTelegraph "This gripping political history not only provides a detailed scholarly account of the Sino-Japanese War but also, in a prologue, offers an admirably succinct introduction to the political history of China in the first half of the twentieth century . . . A story of heroic and determined resistance . . . enlivened by extracts from the writing of Chinese people who endured the war." -- Delia Davin, Observer (UK) "A masterly account . . . Blends wide, deep scholarship with an accessible narrative that includes an admirable focus on [the wars] effects on ordinary people . . . Mitters great achievement is to have encompassed a multi-faceted story in a readable, coherent, and gripping manner that should rescue this horrific conflict from the neglect it has suffered in the West and explain why history lives on in East Asia." -- Jonathan Fenby, Times (UK) "Mitters narrative élan, in the manner of David McCullough, creates a complex history that is urgently alive. An important, well-told tale of China at war." -- Kirkus
Synopsis
The epic, untold story of China's devastating eight-year war of resistance against Japan in World War II.
Synopsis
For decades, a major piece of World War II history has gone virtually unwritten. China was the fourth great ally, partner to the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, yet its drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue remains little known in the West. In this emotionally gripping book, made possible through access to newly unsealed Chinese archives, Rana Mitter unfurls the story of China's World War II as never before and rewrites the larger history of the war in the process. He focuses his narrative on three towering leaders — Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong, and the lesser-known collaborator Wang Jingwei — and extends the timeline of the war back to 1937, when Japanese and Chinese troops began to clash, fully two years before Hitler invaded Poland.
Unparalleled in its research and scope, Forgotten Ally is a sweeping, character-driven history that will be essential reading not only for anyone with an interest in World War II, but also for those seeking to understand today's China, where, as Mitter reveals, the echoes of the war still reverberate.
About the Author
Rana Mitter is a professor of modern Chinese history at the University of Oxford and the author of several books including A Bitter Revolution. He is a regular contributor to British television and radio. His writing has appeared in the Financial Times, the Guardian, and elsewhere.
Table of Contents
Contents ixDramatis Personae xi
Pronunciation Guide xiii
Prologue: City on Fire 1
Part I: The Path to War 25
1. As Close as Lips and Teeth: Chinas Fall, Japans Rise 27
2. A New Revolution 43
3. The Path to Confrontation 56
Part II: Disaster 77
4. Thirty-seven Days in Summer: The Outbreak of War 79
5. The Battle for Shanghai 98
6. Refugees and Resistance 109
7. Massacre at Nanjing 124
8. The Battle of Taierzhuang 145
9. The Deadly River 157
Part III: Resisting Alone 171
10. “A sort of wartime normal” 173
11. Flight into the Unknown 197
12. The Road to Pearl Harbor 211
Part IV: The Poisoned Alliance 237
13. Destination Burma 239
14. Hunger in Henan 263
15. States of Terror 280
16. Conference at Cairo 296
17. One War, Two Fronts 315
18. Showdown with Stilwell 335
19. Unexpected Victory 345
Epilogue: The Enduring War 365
Notes 380
Further Reading 429
Acknowledgments 437
Photo Credits 439
Index 440