Victorious In Defeat

An extensively researched, comprehensive biography of Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, one of the twentieth century's most powerful and controversial figures Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) led the Republic of China for almost fifty years, starting in 1926. He was the architect of a new, republican China, a hero of the Second World War, and a faithful ally of the United States. Simultaneously a Christian and a Confucian, Chiang dreamed of universal equality yet was a perfidious and cunning dictator responsible for the deaths of over 1.5 million innocent people. This critical biography is based on Chiang Kai-shek's unpublished diaries, his extensive personal files from the Russian archives, and the Russian files of his relatives, associates, and foes. Alexander V. Pantsov sheds new light on the role played by the Russians in Chiang's rise to power in the 1920s and throughout his political career--and indeed the Russian influence on the Chinese revolutionary movement as a whole--as well as on Chiang's complex relationship with top officials of the United States. It is a detailed portrait of a man who ranks with Stalin, Roosevelt, Hitler, Churchill, and Gandhi as leaders who shaped our world.

Excerpt from A Victorious Defeat: A Romance In the uncertain glory of a failing April day, Owen March stood before a door in the village of Judea, and let fall its knocker. His imagination, which went forward with a vague interest, as he rapped, to meet those with whom the opening of the door would make him acquainted, stood still with a mild shock when no footsteps answered his summons. But he lifted the reclining lamb again quite patiently, and waited once more for a response. As it did not come, he let his eyes wander down the street up which he had just come. It was a thoroughfare full of entertainment for one who saw it for the first time. March regarded it attentively for some minutes, during which he once more caused the little brass figure to make gentle inquiry of the dilatoriness of the house's inmates. When this knock also proved fruitless, he turned his glance toward the garden, endeavoring to bask beneath him in the stingy sunlight. As he looked, he was aware that the solitude was abruptly peopled. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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Grace C. Huang reconsiders Chiang Kai-shek's leadership and legacy in an intriguing new portrait of this twentieth-century leader. Comparing his response to imperialism to those of Mao, Yuan Shikai, and Mahatma Gandhi, Huang widens the implications of her findings to explore alternatives to Western expressions of nationalism and modernity.