Civil War in China

The Political Struggle 1945-1949

By (author) Suzanne Pepper

Publication date:

22 July 1999

Length of book:

544 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9780847691333

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.

Chapter 1 Part I: The Last Years of Kuomintang Rule
Chapter 2 Introduction
Chapter 3 The Beginning of the End: Take-over from the Japanese
Chapter 4 The Student Anti-war Movement
Chapter 5 The Political Costs of Economic Mismanagement
Chapter 6 A Summary of the Indictment: The Intelligentsia's Critique of the Kuomintang
Part 7 Part II: The Communist Alternative
Chapter 8 The Intelligentsia's Critique of the Chinese Communists
Chapter 9 The Return to Land Reform
Chapter 10 The Return to the Cities
Chapter 11 A New Beginning: The Communist Take-over from the Kuomintang
Chapter 12 The Politics of Civil War

A splendid contribution to our understanding of that part of the Chinese Revolution between the defeat of Japan and the proclamation of the People's Republic of China. We are not likely to have a better account of the politics of a major turning point in history than this one.