Republican China: Nationalism, War, and the Rise of Communism 1911-1949

The China Reader #2

by Franz Schurmann, Orville Schell

China Readings (in three volumes) is the most comprehensive and authoritative work on China ever published here in a popular edition. Prepared and introduced by two leading sinologists, it contains material on Chinese politics, ideology, society, and culture from a wide range of original and secondary sources, both Chinese and foreign. It is intended to clarify contemporary China's traditions, motives and attitudes as they have emerged from her history, rather than offer a merely chronological account.

Volume 2, Republican China, describes the tumultuous period between 1911 and 1949, a time of terrible hardship which witnessed the disintegration of Confucian society and, after two brutal wars (one national, against Japan, one civil), the victory of Communist forces under Mao Tse-tung. This selection of material by Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Tse-tung and many Western experts demonstrates how, after Mao's epic Long March, the Communist strategy of peasant revolution succeeded where the Nationalists failed - in making the people a political weapon. In this, the formative period of the new China's relations with both the Soviet Union and the U.S.A., two fundamental questions emerge: Was the rise of Chinese Communism inevitable, and how are present-day Chinese thought and action influenced by the domestic and international experiences of Republican China?

Genres: China, History

394 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1967

Reviews

[Philip]

NOTE: Probably just for hardcore students of the Chinese Nationalist period, which a much younger version of me once was.

[Patrick Peterson]

2021-03-17 This was the 2nd book in my honors HS History - Non Western Cultures class my sophomore year. I don't remember liking it much at all. Not easy to read. Not memorable much at all.

[Andrew Shapter]

Given this was published in 1967, things have changed vastly in this AO, however there is nothing wrong with going back to get a grasp on the historical roots of the world that we live in today.

For me, this book is an addition to my first and second world war readings as well as a little bit of research into a character in my own series of action novels...

[Xian]

Solid collection of readings and primary accounts on the topic. Well suited for developing a relatively comprehensive understanding of the period. It is actually not a long read, being digestible in parts/chapters.