Content area
Full Text
China at War: Triumph and Tragedy in the Emergence of the New China. By Hans van de Ven. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2018. xvi, 352 pp. ISBN: 9780674983502 (cloth).
Narrating China's modern history through the lens of warfare is not entirely new. In fact, there is no shortage of books with “China at War” either as the title or as the subject. Nevertheless, Hans van de Ven's latest book stands out in several ways.
To begin with, van de Ven abandons the conventional periodization of early twentieth-century Chinese history, including the one used in his own 2003 book, War and Nationalism in China, 1925–1945 (London: Routledge). Part one, “Staking a Nation,” examines nation-building endeavors by the Chinese Nationalists in the decades before the outbreak of full-scale war with Japan in 1937, and part two, “Momentous Times,” analyzes the first five years of that war. Part three, “Acid Test,” probes the international aspect of the war as it transited away from conventional warfare, while part four, “New China,” covers the ensuing civil war ending with Communist China's triumph and Beijing's participation in the Korean War. To give one example, in a chapter entitled “The Turning Point,” van de Ven convincingly demonstrates that the massive Ichigo campaign launched by the Japanese in China in 1944 inflicted serious damage to the Nationalists both militarily and politically at home and abroad, essentially “set[ting] the ball rolling” for the Communists’ ultimate victory (p. 181). In short, he considers China's wars between 1937 and 1953 to be “an interlocking series of events” (p. 10). Although the War of Resistance still occupies center stage (fully half of...