Forgotten ally : China's World War II, 1937-1945 /
Rana Mitter.
- First U.S. edition.
- xii, 450 pages, [16] pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm
First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane in 2013 under title China's war with Japan, 1937-1945.
Machine generated contents note: Contents -- Dramatis Personae -- Pronunciation Guide -- Prologue : City on Fire -- Part I: The Path to War -- 1. As Close as Lips and Teeth: China's Fall, Japan's Rise -- 2. A New Revolution -- 3. The Path to Confrontation -- Part II: Disaster -- 4. Thirty-seven Days in Summer: The Outbreak of War -- 5. The Battle for Shanghai -- 6. Refugees and Resistance -- 7. Massacre at Nanjing -- 8. The Battle of Taierzhuang -- 9. The Deadly River -- Part III: Resisting Alone -- 10. "A sort of wartime normal -- 11. Flight into the Unknown -- 12. The Road to Pearl Harbor -- Part IV: The Poisoned Alliance -- 13. Destination Burma -- 14. Hunger in Henan -- 15. States of Terror -- 16. Conference at Cairo -- 17. One War, Two Fronts -- 18. Showdown with Stilwell -- 19. Unexpected Victory -- Epilogue: The Enduring War -- Notes -- Further Reading -- Acknowledgments -- Photo Credits -- Index.
"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"--