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Through the individual characteristics of China's political leaders, a nation-building process began. Chinese leaders fell into two categories of reformers: conservative and liberal. Conservative reformers saw a corruption of the moral order of society that needed to be eliminated in order to restore the country's moral integrity, while liberal reformers attempted to embrace the flaws and lead China toward Socialism. One hundred Chinese leaders—from the Opium War to 2001—are profiled in this comprehensive biographical dictionary. This book provides the most up-to-date coverage of modern Chinese political leadership during the Imperial, Republican, and Communist periods. Political leaders throughout each period had a common desire for reform within the country while maintaining China's political and cultural legacy. Leung invokes the uniqueness of those leaders in their struggle for personal gain and national improvement as they fought to preserve traditional values. Written by 30 international scholars and experts in the field using both Western and Chinese sources, this is the most authoritative dictionary on the subject.
Explores the complex history and legacy of elite wives, concubines, and daughters of warlords in twentieth-century China. In Women and Their Warlords, historian Kate Merkel-Hess examines the lives and personalities of the female relatives of the military rulers who governed regions of China from 1916 to 1949. Posing for candid photographs and sitting for interviews, these women did not merely advance male rulers’ agendas. They advocated for social and political changes, gave voice to feminist ideas, and shaped how the public perceived them. As the first publicly political partners in modern China, the wives and concubines of Republican-era warlords changed how people viewed elite women’s engagement in politics. Drawing on popular media sources, including magazine profiles and gossip column items, Merkel-Hess draws unexpected connections between militarism, domestic life, and state power in this insightful new account of gender and authority in twentieth-century China.
Charts Western influence and national development. Beginning with the mid-19th century, when China encountered the West and began to enter the modern age, this encyclopedia offers an overview of the world's largest and most populous nation. The coverage includes not only major political topics, but also surveys the arts, business, literature, education, journalism, and all other major aspects of the nation's social, cultural, and economic life. The encyclopedia also offers significant material on such often neglected subjects as women and minorities, modern drama, Sino-French War, the federalist movement, overseas Chinese, Mongolian independence, and more. Special emphasis throughout is on t...
Though best known for his central part in the American war effort from 1939 to 1945, George C. Marshall’s critical role in the early Cold War was probably at least as important in shaping the policies and politics of the postwar western world—and in cementing his place as a pivotal figure in twentieth-century American history. This book places Marshall squarely at the center of the story of the American century by examining his tenure in key policymaking positions during this period, including army chief of staff, special presidential envoy to China, secretary of state, and secretary of defense, among others. George C. Marshall and the Early Cold War brings together a diverse and accompl...
"Excellent." The Economist "A gripping account." South China Morning Post "Well worth reading." The Morning Star "A persuasive and readable narrative." History Today "Elegantly written." The Tablet "An excellent study." The Chartist "Engaging." Asia Times The events of 1949 in China reverberated across the world and throughout the rest of the century. That tumultuous year saw the dramatic collapse of Chiang Kai-shek's 'pro-Western' Nationalist government, overthrown by Mao Zedong and his communist armies, and the foundation of the People's Republic of China. China 1949 follows the huge military forces that tramped across the country, the exile of once-powerful leaders and the alarm of the fo...
Many books have tried to analyze the reasons for the Chinese communist success in China's 1945_1949 civil war, but Suzanne Pepper's seminal work was the first and remains the only comprehensive analysis of how the ruling Nationalists lost that war_not just militarily, but by alienating the civilian population through corruption and incompetence. Now available in a new edition, this authoritative investigation of Kuomintang failure and communist success explores the new research and archival resources available for assessing this pivotal period in contemporary Chinese history. Even more relevant today given the contemporary debates in Hong Kong and Taiwan over the terms of reunification with a communist-led national government in Beijing, this book is essential reading for anyone seeking a nuanced understanding of twentieth-century Chinese politics.
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