张学良与日本 （臼井勝美/陈鹏仁）

This book was originally published in Japanese coming out of a documentary that NHK made about Zhang Xueliang (张学良), also known as the Young Marshal. Zhang was the son of Zhang Zhuolin (张作霖） the warlord from the northeastern provinces of China. His life was a fascinating one but he was most well-known for the Xi'an Incident (西安事变) where he and his associates abducted Chiang Kaishek and forced him to stop the pursuit of the Communists and instead work with them to fight the Japanese who at that time had occupied Manchuria and had declared it an "independent" country called Manchukuo.

As mentioned, this book was written from the materials and interviews made for the documentary on Zhang and reads exactly like that. While the author had access to Zhang, this book is not a collection of her interview with Zhang. In many places it was written almost like a script for a documentary and in other places the author filled it with materials from other sources. In fact there was surprisingly little from the actual interviews and the most disappointing of all, Zhang refused to divulge anything on what happened in the Xi'an Incident. And honestly, he  had kept his mouth tightly shut about the most important details of the negotiations between Zhou Enlai and Chiang Kaishek in the years after that.

However if one is looking for a source that is easy to read to get all the facts of Zhang's life, this book would be a good reference. It is not one that gives the reader an in-depth understanding of the events because it lacks the analyses of the various events and therefore ended up looking a little disjointed and lacking a central thesis. But to be fair, the author never meant for this book to be one of an analysis of Zhang or any events associated with him, it is simply a documentary turned into a book.

I know of Zhang in my earlier readings but did not find out more about him. If this book has done anything for me, it has piqued my interest in him and he being young in those tumultuous years actually lived long enough to entertain a few video-recorded interviews that are available on YouTube (they are in Chinese though). His history has been presented in almost opposite ways in China and Taiwan. With this book as a start I hope to find out more about him and come to my own assessment of him.

(Find this book at Goodreads)

The Best And The Brightest (David Halberstam)

This book features almost all the people who had a hand in the decision on the US’ involvement in Vietnam. There was no question that these were the best and the brightest, which all more makes the reader wonders why the US eventually found herself in the quagmire. By the end of the book the reader may still not find the answer, but what he or she will find is a lesson in human folly and how the illusion of superior ability can lead one to arrogance, or perhaps less, over-confidence, but ending in hubris nevertheless.

This book is cleverly structured, the first half featuring one president (and the presidency) and the second half the next. Under this over-arching framework, the author added the layers below the presidents, starting with the national security advisor, secretaries of defense and states, their deputies and assistants, then the chief of staffs, and finally the ambassadors to South Vietnam. In some cases these happen to be the same people who worked across the administrations, in others there were multiples changes. But all the time the message was consistent – these are the most brilliant people, although in different ways. Yet there was no denying that these were the best and the brightest.

And thus the reader is led to ask – why then did the US eventually slipped into the Vietnam War which killed more than 50,000 Americans, severely draining the treasury, divided the country, and lost the country of a lot of its prestige and goodwill? The author did not provide a simplistic answer to this complex question, rather, he showed the mixture of personalities, beliefs, politics, and self-interest that slowly pushes the country deeper and deeper into a situation from which they could not extricate themselves, even after some have changed their minds about the US’ involvement.

At the beginning there were those who did not know what Vietnam was about, besides the unpalatable fact that it was a French colony which the French should quit, but would not. But in view of the need for France’s support in Europe a little sweetener for them in Vietnam is of negligible cost to the US. Then there were those who framed it with cold-war rhetoric of having to stop the spread of Communism in Asia. After “losing” China, it would be unthinkable to let the rest of the dominoes fall. Later it began to look to others like it was a good place to fight a good war. To be sure, there were those who tried to stop the tide and where impossible, to at least retard it. But these were in the minority, their cases always weak and their stance uncoordinated. In the end they were among the earliest casualties, and the author took us up the hierarchy again, only this time showing the sequence of the casualties: the ambassadors, the deputy and assistant secretaries, the secretaries, and ultimately the president himself. Few came out looking good, those who escaped rather unscathed politically would look unprincipled in the book.

The author did not just write a book that recorded the events and the decisions, he wrote a book to caution decision makers of all kinds. His message is for people to remember that arrogance has no place even (or especially) among the best and the brightest, for the game will eventually play you. But the biggest chill that the author gave me was not the fact that if the best and the brightest can fall into such a folly what more the lesser beings, it was that it is precisely when you think you have control of the game that you lose control. When you think you have resisted the tide because you managed to not give your opponent all that he wanted, you have actually forgotten what you had to give him in exchange for that. The illusion of being on top of things will lure you into the trap. I think this book should be kept handy, not because it would serve as a reference, but it would serve as a good reminder that even if you think you are the best and the brightest, you can still be catastrophically wrong. And then you would have to live with it.

(Find this book at Goodreads)

Nixon and Kissinger (Robert Dallek)

This book juxtaposes two interesting characters who were similar yet different at the same time. This is not just a biography of two close colleagues but is an attempt to show how their respective tenures weaved together, at times in harmony, giving each other support, yet some times contradicting, coming close to breaking down on some occasions.

Since the gist of the story is about how these two men worked together, the author's effort at keeping the description of the earlier parts of their lives short is greatly appreciated. The bulk of the book rightly centres on the time of the Nixon presidency, when the two men worked closely together.

The author managed to present a picture of two men working together who were at once very similar in nature to each other but ended up with very different reputations. They needed each other yet at the same time tried to outdo one another. They served the same administration yet were almost at odds with each other on a number of foreign policy issues. They were each other's best friends yet had palpable disdain for each other, with Kissinger calling Nixon the meanest of names (pg 93) while Nixon showing that he was rightly deserving of them through the perverse pleasure he took in distressing Kissinger (pg 288). Such is the skill of the author in crafting a story filled with intriguing personalities and complicated relationships. In the end one could not help wondering about the complexities of Whitehouse relationships.

Both Nixon and Kissinger didn't come out looking very well. Nixon looked like a manipulating, crude, and insecure guy who constantly needed reassurance and reaffirmation about what he was doing. Kissinger on the other hand was egoistic, narcissistic, calculating and self-serving. But both would provide what the other needed: Kissinger was always ready to help Nixon smoke his own dope, giving superlative praises in spades, while Nixon gave Kissinger the opportunities (no matter how unwillingly) to play his role as the super-star of foreign policy. And when things did not work out, they could always resort to threats which they would not carry out, Kissinger on resigning his position, and Nixon on cancelling the summits with various world leaders. Nixon however came out looking slightly worse because of his readiness to resort to "dirty tricks" (pg 186), even as early as MyLai. In the end he would be brought down by one of these and gained the inglorious reputation of being the first (and only) president in the US to resign. In the last two chapters when Watergate was catching up with Nixon, the author portrayed a guy who always seemed to be on the verge of breakdown, and that was where the paths of Nixon and Kissinger diverged. One became almost maniacal, while the other went on to the peak of his reputation as a man who brought peace to the Middle East. It was almost painful to read, but the contrast between their fates only heighten the drama near the end.

This is the second book of Dallek's that I've read, and both I did not enjoy. It was not that he was a bad writer, but I just didn't take to his style. There was no occasion where I found the author's grammar wanting, I think it has more to do with his rather dry style that does not help the story to flow. Also, in this book he quoted Ambrose a lot, giving one the impression that it was the only source that he consulted, but what grated me more was his habit of quoting conversations wholesale, something that he also did in the earlier book that I read. Too much of this makes me feel that he has not analysed his subjects enough.

One also wonders about the approach taken by the author in terms of portraying the characters. Does trying to be fair and impartial equate to ensuring that the subjects are seen in a poor light? We all know what happened with Nixon, but I could hardly find anything in the book that spoke well of him. I am not much of a Nixon fan, but I do not think that he has almost no redeeming features. Kissinger looked better in comparison, but only slightly, and that was because he was put in contrast to Nixon in the last days of the presidency. I think I would not judge this book a fair account of either man, just as one praising the subjects is not necessarily biased.

Finally I would like to talk about a couple of points that I reflected upon as I read the book. Firstly, the elections in the US has a huge impact on policy decision-making. Although I believe this to be true in other democratic countries, what was unfortunate in this case was its impact on the decisions relating to the Vietnam War. Some decisions were purposely delayed because of the election in order to achieve some political optics. These delays caused many American and Vietnamese lives to be lost. While it is easy to put the blame on the politicians, we the electorate should perhaps ask if our way of looking at politicians' behaviours and our inability to comprehend complex issues have led to them needing to 'manipulate' us by presenting the best possible facade.

Secondly, no matter what relationship one has with his/her boss, one should never try to look better than the boss. No bosses like to look less able than their subordinates. Being a deputy is therefore much more challenging than being the boss in some sense; you do not want to look stupid, yet you cannot look smarter than your boss. On occasions Kissinger let his narcissism get the better of him, inccuring Nixon's wrath.

I am no Nixon/Kissinger specialist and do not intent to be one. For a superficial understanding of these two men and their relationship, this book suffices. I suspect that it is positioned as one to fill the gap in the literature of these two men by exploring the complex constructive and yet amazingly self-serving relationship between two of the most important men during the cold war era. For that reason, this is one book that may be of interest to those wanting to know more about how these two men have worked together during their time.

(Find this book at Goodreads)

Nomonhan 1939 (Stuart D. Goldman)

To most, WW2 started on 1 September 1939 with Germany's invasion of Poland. However Japan's involvement in WW2 is considered to only start on 7 December 1941 after they attacked Pearl Harbor. Yet the Japanese had been fighting for years in a more regional war in China because of their annexation of Manchuria. It wasn't only the Chinese they were fighting though, because of the unclear boundaries between what was then Manchukuo and Mongolia, the Japanese ended up also fighting a 'limited' war with the Russians. A serious one occured just before WW2 started in Europe, between May and August 1939 in a place known as Nomonhan to the Japanese, or Khalkhin Gol to the Russians.

This book by Prof. Stuart D. Goldman describes this relatively unknown incident called the Nomonhan Incident (or the Battle of Khalkhin Gol). But more than just describing the incident, the author put forth an important thesis: this battle, while relative small compared to others yet to come, and confined to a tiny, obscure area in the plains of faraway Mongolia, had a profound impact on how WW2 eventually developed. In particular it was because of this battle that Japan became convinced that they should avoid another conflict with Soviet Union, giving more force to those who argued that they should go down south for the resources that they need. And to prevent the US from intervening, they had to destroy the US fleet in Pearl Harbor, the rest, we all know.

The author developed his argument by taking the reader down two tracks. The first being the history associated with the Kwantung Army leading to the border disputes with the Russians. The second is the global context, setting out what was happening in other parts of the world (especially in Europe) and situating this incident within that larger context. With these in place, the author then explained first why the conflict took place and then how it led to subsequent developments in WW2.

Following the first track, besides the history related to the formation of the Kwantung Army, which was informative in itself, the author took pains to explain the concept of Gekokujo (下克上, literally "lower level overcoming upper level") which has been associated with the Japanese Army (less the Navy) and most frequently with the Kwantung Army. This is a strange concept that, as far as I know, is only present in the Japanese Army where mid-ranking officers either manipulated or openly defied their senior officers' commands to do what they wanted. The further away they were from the central command in Tokyo, the worse the transgressions. The author showed with many examples how this manifested itself in the Kwantung Army.

Further to their tendency to exhibit Gekokujo, they also had a sense of invulnerability which was heightened by their perception that the Russians were weak. And at one point indeed they appeared to be (pg 17). This together with the ineffective commands from Tokyo that the Kwantung Army commanders were determined to ignore, and the purposely vague border protection policies issued by the Kwantung Army commanders (pg 89) made for an inevitable showdown with the Russians - the question is what would the Russians do?

By way of introducing the Changkufeng Incident a year before the Nomonhan Incident, the author explained to the readers that the Russians probably felt that the time had come to put their foot down in their dealings with the Japanese, especially with the Kwantung Army. When the Japanese acted against the Mongolians (the allies of the Russians) in Nomonhan in 1939, the Russians decided that they had to teach the Japanese a lesson. The story then went on to describe in good details about the campaigns that took place in that period of  four months, at an exciting pace for a scholarly work. More importantly, throughout the description, the author kept an eye on Stalin's responses and decisions, which in contrast to the Japanese's perspective, was wide in its geopolitical considerations. And who can blame him, for the Soviet Union spanned both Europe and Asia and could find herself potentially fighting a two-front war which Stalin was determined to avoid.

The Japanese had no such worries, although they should. While arguably in the same theatre, 1939 was also when Japan was beginning to be caught in the quagmire in China. So while the Tokyo wanted to play down the Nomonhan Incident, the Kwantung Army would have none of it. But in an almost ridiculous fashion, the Kwantung Army could be so compelling that even Tokyo went along with them despite an Imperial Order.

General Nakajima, deputy chief of AGS (Army General Staff), flew to Hsinking with Imperial Order 343, commanding Kwantung Army to hold its position near the disputed frontier with "minimal strength" to ensure a quick end to hostilities and a prompt diplomatic settlement. But in meeting with Nakajima, the KwAHQ (Kwantung Army HQ) Staff, led by the Operations Sections, clung passionately to its convictions. Incredibly, Nakajima was won over by the staff's fervent spirit and gave verbal approval for Kwantung Army's general offensive to begin on September 10. (pg 150)

And so the slaughter on both sides started.

The author paid a reasonable attention to the Russian forces as well, never hiding the fact that their loses were equally appalling and that the incident, while celebrated for the bloody nose it gave to the Japanese, did not come at a small price for the Russians. Particularly enjoyable was to read about Marshall Zhukov who was given the first significant command of his career, coming in the wake of Stalin's purge of his more experienced commanders.

For a book that is no more than 180 pages, persuading readers about his thesis is an ambitious feat for the author. But he succeeded admirably. This is not to say that other scholars could not find reasons to disagree with him as he himself admitted in the Preface but at least in terms of academic rigor and logic, his case was compelling. Although many pieces of his evidence were circumstantial, the use of the dates of various events on the side of the Russians seemed to suggest that Russian reactions to the geopolitical scenario in relation to Germany, Japan and subsequently to Poland hinged much on the Nomonhan Incident and its conclusion.

On the Japanese side according to Colonel Hayashi Saburo, one of the General Staff officers, there was general recognition that they should leave Russia alone and from then on, and should only make their move south (into Southeast Asia).  This compares well with what was said by Japanese Scholar Kazutoshi Handō (半藤一利) in Showa Shi (昭和史), where both Masanobu Tsuji and Takushiro Hattori were said to have decided that "in future, go south." And going south meant going after Pearl Harbor too.

This book is surely a good place to start for those of us wanting to get an introduction to the Nomonhan Incident. But to say that it is but an introductory book is unfair because it comes with a huge amount of information, all organised logically, and presented persuasively.

(Find this book at Goodreads)

Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze (Peter Harmsen)

Most Chinese take 7 Jul 1937, the day of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (卢沟桥事变) as the day when China officially went to war with Japan. Immediately after the incident, Chiang Kai-shek found himself out of an excuse to not confront the Japanese on Chinese soil. He decided to make his stand in Shanghai and this book is about that battle, known in the Chinese literature as 淞滬會戰.

At 300 pages, this is a fairly short book by normal standards. The brisk and flowing style adopted by the author made the book an enjoyable read. This book is obviously based on good research and has the merit of showing many good archive pictures. On top of that, it also provides the answer to a question I have had for many years - why do Chinese soldiers that appeared in movies I saw as a child wear German helmets? Does it not make them the bad guys? This book is the only one I have come across that gives a good account of the close relationship between the Chinese government and the Germans, explaining the many German military advisers used by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) in the 1930s.

The author, Peter Harmsen, is particularly good at articulating scenes of various types (although I suspect that this is helped by my own exposure to the pictures and movies I watched as a child). I would point to two examples, the first one was what went on in the Great World Amusement Centre, taking readers into the place itself, almost helping one to see what various vendors were doing. I thought I could hear the music coming out of the crackling grammaphone. The other, in contrast, was the gruesome fighting scenes of death and destruction. I confess again, that being exposed from young to pictures and movies made of that era has helped me to visualise (maybe inaccurately) what the author described, but that should not take anything away from his ability to attend to the smallest yet important details.

There are however lapses that reduces my enjoyment of the book. The prologue talked about the Xi-an Incident in which Chiang was kidnapped by Zhang Xueliang, the Young Marshal as he was called, in a bid to force Chiang to come to terms with the Communists to fight the Japanese together. For such an important event, I wonder why the author did not mention it by name, and the greater ommission was Zhang Xueliang's name. Yet he would bother to interject his otherwise flowing narrative with stories that seem to come at the wrong time, or which are of no use to the reader. An example of such was the story on Dai Li (pg 145) which interrupted what was an exciting description of the brutal battle that was going on.

The author also made a strange comment on pg 64 about the tragedy of the Black Saturday. This was when the Chinese bombers sent to bomb the Japanese cruiser Izumo dropped their bombs in the most crowded parts of Shanghai instead, killing only Chinese civilians. The author said that 'the tragedy could have been prevented by Japan.' I cannot appreciate the thoughts behind what he said; was he trying to be sarcastic or ironic, or was he really putting the blame on the Japanese? I hope he had not said it.

That said, the perceptive author provided much for a reader to reflect upon.

The first of these was about the city itself. What was Shanghai really like in that era? If there was a 'limited war', I would say that this battle was the most 'limited' insofar as territory is concerned. With Japan's total restrain concerning the International Settlements, one got the surreal sense that the battle could be raging along one side of a fence maiming people indiscriminately, while on the other side, people, safe behind the fences of the International Settlements, watched on. Foreign reporters could still be staying in a five-star hotel that continued to operate as normal.

But 'limited' is also a misnomer in this battle, as with all others involving the Chinese. For Chinese commanders always seemed to believe that there were unlimited Chinese to die. Those frontal attacks against well-entrenched enemies in movies looked like propaganda, only that they were unfortunately accurate (pg 53). No one was called to account for the fiasco of Black Saturday. A captain, who claimed to be involved in it, even gave an interview to the press and tried to explained why it happened (pg 63).

I also could not help noticing that the one thing the that the Chinese Army seemed to consistently do successfully was to withdraw quietly at night from a salient they held in the day. The Japanese sometimes did not even know until days later. The one exception was battle for the Sihang Warehouse where some 425 Chinese soldiers took a last stand against the Japanese. This battle was described very well in the book.

Overall, this book is a good read. Although I have my complaints, these are probably due to my unfair expectations of it being more scholarly when it was written as a 'popular' history book. This book is recommended if for none other reason than there being very few English language works on the war in China during this era.

(Find this book at Goodreads)

Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas (Matthew Hollis)

This book does not belong to the genre that I normally read, in fact I didn't even know who Edward Thomas was. I bought this book for two reasons: it was in the discount bin in the bookstore, heavily discounted, secondly the artillery pieces on the cover of book misled me somewhat into thinking that this book would be skewed towards WWI action. It was left on my bookshelf for more than a year since I bought it and I only picked it up to read because this is the centennial year of the start of WWI.

 Let me first get my complaints out of the way.

For a book centred on Edward Thomas, he only got the first passing mention on page 14 and it was not only until Page 16 when the story started to centre on him; this is not a book written straight to the point. Worse, a book so-titled made no mention of WWI until pg 142, almost halfway through, after which it meandered through other issues before reaching the last quarter when Thomas finally enlisted in the army. This book could have taken a number of other titles, "Edward Thomas and his Friend Robert Frost" would be a much less romantic but nevertheless more accurate one.

But there is much to like about this book. First of all, the writing. The first dozen pages started with the opening of the Poetry Bookshop in London and detoured to a description of the poetry scene in London through the different reigns. But what writing! One is left to wonder if Mr Hollis' knowledge of the poetry genre meant an active interest in poets and poetry, and the lyrical tone has found its way into his prose. (I found later that Hollis is indeed a poet himself.) Take this graphical depiction of the poets' quirks in the public reading of their works for example:

Yeats recited to a sell-out audience, Wilfrid Gibson performed in a droning monotone; W. H. Davies suffered nerves (cured when he was encouraged to think of the whisky afterwards), Sturge Moore forgot his lines; Ford Madox Hueffer read hurriedly, Rupert Brooked inaudibly, and Ralph Hodgson, who could not tolerate so much as a mention of his own work, simply refused to read at all, while simply no one could silence the actorly John Drinkwater.

There are many more examples of beautiful, lyrical writing that is unfamiliar to me. But reading this book through the usual lenses with which I used to read my other books, I got a little impatient wondering when all roads were going to lead to France. A big part of the book was on Thomas's unhappy family life, a not-so-successful career, his friendship with Frost, and then his struggle whether or not to enlist and to become a poet. In the end, France occupied but some 20 pages of the book, but lest I forget, this book is not about France, but all roads leading to France. And all that happened to him, as carefully developed by the author were roads leading to France, and tortuous as they were to Thomas, they were beautiful to the reader.

I would like to briefly talk about Frost's poem, The Road Not Taken. Personally, I hated this poem, unfairly, of course, as I hardly knew anything about it. But those last two lines, "I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." are quoted to death by anyone who wanted to show that they had the courage to take a 'less traveled path' that it irritates me no end. I once came across a newspaper article where the journalist quoted this to show that she had taken the "path less traveled" by being a - journalist.

However, after one had been educated by the author on the context under which this poem was written, Frost's own mischievous caution to his audience, Thomas's strong reaction to it, and most of all the author's own perceptive questions about the poem (pg 234), one can't help but fall in love with it. Perhaps feeling a little snobbery too (now that I know it better than that journalist). But the rejoinder that came on page 261 in the form of Thomas's Road was equally powerful, especially when the author broke up the poem, starting with "Now all roads lead to France". Yes, now all roads lead to France, in Thomas's own words, he would be going to France.

In the epilogue, the author went back to describing those who in Thomas's circle and what happened to them during and after the war, much like how he described them at the beginning of the book in the Poetry Bookshop. Before that, he touched ever so softly on Thomas's own death when it came, never over-playing it, and one is left to feel sad, yet happy that "[h]e fell without a mark on his body."

A poet who joined the army to fight a war, these are two ideas that I can never associate together. Yet in Thomas's case, and indeed those around him, this almost seemed like the only right thing to do. How did they, and in particular, Thomas come to this? It took another poet to tell us the story of this poet.

(Find this book at Goodreads)

Chiang Kai-Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost (Jonathon Fenby)

At one time in China's recent history, Chiang Kai-shek came close to unifying and ruling it. This book by Jonthan Fenby talks about the man and provides some insights into why he failed. By taking the readers through the different stages in his life and exploring how he overcame the challenges and treacheries along the way, the author managed to weave an interesting and rather gripping account of Chiang's life in this book.

This book was structured chronologically as with most biographies, but it was also divided into major sections covering Chiang's childhood, the period when he consolidated his power, followed by the time when he ruled from Nanking, to fighting the Japanese proper after Xi-an, and concluding with how Chiang fought and lost the civil war. What I particularly liked was the weights given to the different sections, putting less attention on Chiang's childhood which I am not quite interested in, but a lot more on the most important parts in his life, and then almost nothing on Chiang's life in Taiwan after 1949. In doing so, the author helped readers to focus only on the consequential parts of Chiang's life and avoided diluting his work with less important or interesting details.

A book on an essentially military person, one can expect the book to talk about many military operations, and because of this, maps are important. In this, the author has done a decent job, providing maps of the major campaigns such as the Northern Expedition and the war with Japan, but one can always ask for more.

My complaint is the lack of a glossary. I do not know if the author knows the Chinese language, somehow I suspect that he didn't because he seemed to have quoted from many translated sources instead of providing his own translation and interpretation of the original Chinese words and the lack of a glossary makes this a big problem.  Take for example what is lian zuo fa? Not having the explanation provided, I was hoping that I could at least see the Chinese characters in the glossary, as I would when reading books on China or Japan. But the absence of the glossary means that words and phrases like this become meaningless to most readers. I also feel that the failure to provide the proper context when quoting from Chiang's diaries made some of the things he wrote sounded stupid. For instance, take this sentence quoted from Chiang's diary: "At a time of national humiliation we should lie in faggots and taste gall." "Lying in faggots and taste gall" sounded almost ridiculous at a time of national humiliation, but if one were to know that Chiang actually wrote "卧薪尝胆", he would realise that Chiang was using a Chinese idiom, formulated by someone caught in a somewhat situation in the past. Things like this make me feel that the author was just quoting blindly from a secondary source, without knowing what actually was written.

There were also parts in the narrative of the story that I felt the author did not fill with enough details to let his readers appreciate the actual drama. For example when talking about Wang Jin-wei's formation of a puppet regime in collaboration with the Japanese, the author brought this important event up almost casually despite having talked about Wang on numerous occasions due to his obvious affiliations to Chiang. Mitter (2013) provided a much better description of the intrigue and dilemma Wang faced in taking that fateful step.

Notwithstanding these, the author was successful in directing me to consider some important people and issues surrounding Chiang. Firstly Sun Yat-sen and Zhang Xueliang. Contemporary Chinese history has portrayed these two men very positively; Sun, in particular, is hailed 国父, the father of the nation. Alas, he is but human and has his faults. We were told not only of his lack of political acumen and ability to manage, there were hints throughout that he was even a womaniser (all of which Chiang bettered). Similarly Zhang Xueliang is considered by many as a patriotic figure who risked his life to get Chiang to agree to fight the Japanese rather than the Communists. But one has to remember that Zhang was from Manchuria and has his fortunes tied up there so the possibility of him trying to use the Nationalist army to evict the Japanese from Manchukuo cannot be discounted.

And then there was Soong Meiling, who seemed to mesmerise every man that came into contact with her. I think she was obviously smart, and being educated in the US stood her out from all the Chinese women and most men in China. But almost all descriptions of her was of her beauty, and on occasions with cursory links to the word 'sex'. Current Chinese sentiments of her are not positive, in China for obvious reasons. But even in Taiwan, I do not get the sense of people seeing much in her. In this book, the author's treatment of her was guarded, he acknowledge her contributions and efforts in helping Chiang to rally the Chinese to resist the Japanese and then the Communists. At the same time, he also cited instances of her belligerent behaviours. However not once did he praise or criticise her in his own accords. Praise and criticism always came from other sources he quoted.

In addition to these, the author also talked about Chiang's relationship with the US. It is difficult to fault the US in their handling of their relationship with Chiang. My impression from the book is that the Americans who were on the ground (in China) clearly knew the state of the country, its army, and its leadership. But caught in their own wars in Europe and the Pacific, it was hard to see through the curtain of mist pulled down by Chiang and his relatives (Soong Meiling and T. V. Soong). Eventually they did know who they were dealing with, if for no other reason than Chiang's seemingly insatiable appetite for cash.

The other subject that the author in my opinion rightly put enough emphasis on is that of the warlords. One is able to learn a great deal about them in this book. Not only were descriptions of them scattered throughout the book, depending on when they appeared in Chiang's life, the author also dedicated a chapter to them, it was an educational one.

In so far as Chiang, the subject, was concerned, what the author successfully did was to provide enough information on him to persuade the readers to consider (or re-consider) the person. A lowly peasant-class man by birth, Chiang must be quite something to overcome his unprivileged birth and significant lack of education (at least compared to Soong Meiling) to rise to the position of the person who almost ruled an almost united China. Along the way he had to overcome political enemies, the ever untrustworthy warloards, and even unfaithful relatives. Yet he would lose almost everything to the Communists and his nemesis, Mao Zedong. Many today still think of him as a traitor for not standing up to the Japanese earlier, but he appeared to have a case for going after the Communists first, which was validated by his own defeat in their hands.

Today Taiwan is still in an awkward position in international relations, even though as an entity on its own it is almost self-sufficient, and has a very enterprising, cultured, creative, educated and likeable people. How much of it is due to Chiang? Can one hold Taiwan as an example of what China would be had he succeeded? These are questions readers, especially Chinese readers would think about. But the other question all readers would surely ask themselves is why did Chiang fail? I do not think I can provide an answer, but suspect that this line quoted from the book (pg 349) encompassing a mix of incompetency, delusion, and deceit goes some way into giving a hint.

'Inflation,inflation! There is no inflation in China! If people want to pay twenty five dollars for a fountain pen, that’s their business, it’s not inflation. They’re crazy, that’s all. They shouldn’t pay it.’ H.H. Kung, Finance Minister

 (Find this book at Goodreads)

Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire (Victor Sebestyen)

1989 was an amazing in the history of the Cold War. It was the year when the satellite states of the Soviet Union in East Europe rid themselves of Communist Parties that have been ruling them for more than 40 years and decided that they deserved a better life. This book, Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire by Victor Sebestyen was a very good introductory reader for anyone wanting to have an overview of the events in the various states.

A journalist who covered the events in Eastern Europe in 1989, Sebesteyn was able to capture the mood of what was happening in the various states at that time very well in the book. His pace was brisk, increasingly so as we near the final section of the book detailing the unfolding events in different states. His perspective was not only from that of high politics, or that between the West (particularly the US) and the Soviet Union, but also down to the people's level, as with his description of Anna Walentynowycz and her wrongful dismissal from her job. This has the benefit of informing his readers of the sentiments at the ground, but more interesting was his description of the festering anti-establishment organisations (or lack of, in the case of Romania) in the different countries just waiting for the the right time to strike and how they were harassed before that. In this, it must also be said that the author gave a fair treatment to his subjects, describing their incompetence and ill-preparedness when it was due (e.g., Solidarity's lack of foresight resulting in the arrest of many of its members) and giving praise when it is deserved.

A reader of this book, upon reflection, would not fail to recognise some questions as he reads the book, all of which I cannot address in this review, but would invite readers consider them for themselves:

1. While Gorbachev appeared to be the hero in the book, what did the Russians really think of him?
2. Despite the rhetoric of the Cold War, it appeared that stability meant more to the West than the dissolution of the empire (see how even West Germany was worried about the instability that would be caused by East Germany's ousting of the Communists).
3. Were the Soviets not using the same arguments in deciding whether or not to leave Afghanistan as the Americans when they argued about leaving Vietnam, and perhaps even Iraq - how do you answer to all those who have died? That they died for nothing? This question would no doubt be asked again by future governments, despite the 'black-hole' outcome that inevitably shows up.
4. Does ideology actually matter? No matter how zealous the party apparatchiks were about their ideology, when they came to realise that it could no longer be saved, all went back to their most basic instincts, self-interest. Machiavelli knew something, and Hobbes was right.

This is an ambitious project and for anyone to want to cover so many countries in a 400-page book, the treatment of each country cannot be comprehensive, and thus my comment earlier about this being a book that provides an overview. The author brought in different players, anti-establishment organisations, the rulers in the different countries, the Soviets (especially Gorbachev), and the Americans, both Reagan and the succeeding president, Bush. However he purposely left the critical question unanswered: Why did the empire fall? Was it because of the popular movements driven by the people? Or were the rulers in the various states so weakened by then that they would have imploded anyway? Or was it Gorbachev who decided to embrace Perestroika and Glasnost because he could not longer sustain the Union otherwise (given the hemorrhage in Afghanistan? Or was it the wisdom of Reagan who decided that he should bet on the sincerity of Gorbachev contrary to all the advice that he was receiving (pg. 224)?

More importantly, why would this revolution be successful where others fail. It was only months prior to this that the students in China gathered in Tiananmen demanding change. That failed, brutally crushed. Was it because Chinese would do to their own what Eastern Europeans would not? Twenty years hence the optimistically called 'Arab Spring' fizzled out in some cases and reverted to other dictators in others. What ingredient was missing in these cases?

The author made no attempt to answer the question in the case of the Soviet empire, therefore providing no leads for us to consider these cases.

(Find this book at Goodreads)

Ishiwara Kanji and Japan's Confrontation with the West (Mark R. Peattie)

Ishiwara Kanji was not well-known as an important personality in the literature of WW2. One reason could be his diminished role by the time the Pacific War started. However one can argue that he played an instrumental role in pushing Japan eventually into the war. This is not an implausible argument, the title of the book alludes to this. Japan’s isolation before the war and eventual aggression in South-East Asia and the Pacific had roots in Manchuria. Ishiwara Kanji was one the orchestrators of the formation of Manchukuo (a “state” created by the Kwangtung Army out of Manchuria meant to be a showcase for Japanese colonialism) and should share some blame for what eventually happened to Japan. But today the name Ishiwara Kanji is only associated with two things: his exploits (or insubordination) in the Kwantung Army, and his book "On The Final War".

Though he served in Manchuria in the Kwantung Army, Kanji's obsession was not on the conflict with China, not even Russia, but the US. His thesis was that Japan would eventually go into a conflict with the US since both were pursuing expansionist policies at the same time. His impression that the US was following an expansionist policy was a result of his extension of what happened in the Philippines and also an extrapolation of the increasing power of the US. But he knew that compared to the US, Japanese resources and industrial prowess were meagre and so a protracted conflict with the US would surely be unsustainable. To increase the odds in Japan's favour, Manchuria, with its vast natural resources seems like a good place to exploit, a policy coming straight out of his 'war can maintain war' ideology, thus started his ambitious, bold, and brilliant plan to create Manchukuo. In doing so, he displayed not just the opportunism that later served him, but also blatant insubordination worthy of court martial. Yet this coincided precisely with the rise of nationalism in Japan that had been riding a rising tide since Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War. The successful exploits of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria generated so much zeal and pride back home that even the Tokyo high command was wary of disciplining him for out-rightly disregarding the command not to escalate matters in China. And so he made his reputation for daring and brilliance, which eventually contributed to his undoing.

Kanji was a prolific writer, and the author of this book, Mark R. Peattie, studied Kanji's writings to develop a picture of how Kanji's own thoughts changed over the years. The picture that emerged was one of an enigma of a man who seemed to hop from one position to another vis-à-vis different countries. For one known as the architect of Manchukuo, his change of heart towards relationship with China and later to his constant warnings about Russia all seemed to make him looked like one who did not appear to have a consistent view of Japan's position in East Asia. However if we were to explore his motives for the change in heart, it would not be difficult to find that these were all considered 'irritants' that must be eliminated in preparation for the Final War - with the US. It was not until near the end of WW2, when he clearly saw that Japan was going to lose the war that he started to shift and declared that continuing the war with the US would only bring Japan to her knees. He was not one to expound 'fighting to the last man', he thought Japan should just surrender and his thoughts were already on rebuilding Japan after the war. An opportunist by nature, he even had the delusions about being asked to serve in post-war Japan for the occupying force.

Unfortunately, by then, he was almost totally out of favour and no one wanted to listen to him. There were a few reasons for this. Firstly, his transgressions during his time in the Kwantung Army, though applauded by many, were resented by some in the Tokyo high command. While they could not do anything to him earlier, they did not forget the humiliation. When the chance came, they seized upon it to sidelined him. Secondly, while he was originally idolised by many young officers for his exploits in Manchuria, his refusal to support them during the Young Officers' Revolt also made them feel that he had sold them out, giving them the inspiration to 'do the right thing' but hanging them to dry when they did it. He was in fact the one given the responsibility to deal with the young officers in revolt. Finally, he lost himself in his big ego, particularly after he was not punished but commended for his actions in Manchuria. He thought he was above military regulations and was openly criticising higher decisions and policies so much so that he became "an embarrassment". That he finally was not even tried for war crimes in the Tokyo Tribunal attests to how much his influence had waned in the closing years of the war.

This is a well-researched book, focusing on just the right bits of Ishiwara Kanji's life, starting from the time he joined the Kwantung Army till the end of his life in 1949, only some 20 years. Some readers may prefer a more comprehensive work that details more of his life, and I think these are probably available in Japanese. For my purpose, this is good enough. The author has an academic way of writing which does not make for easy reading. But the author structured the book well, focusing on major subjects rather than chronology, making it easy for those who want to study the various aspects of Kanji's life, be it his stint in various commands and positions, or his writings. What are invaluable about this book are the analyses the author added at the end of every chapter, culminating in a final chapter that encapsulates the author's overall evaluation of his subject. Given the dearth of English literature on much of Japan's war in East Asia, this old book is an important resource for those seeking to understand the events of the time. More importantly, for those who want to see how broken down the political system and army discipline had been in Japan in that era, the subject of this book could not have epitomised it better.

(Find this book at Goodreads)

John F. Kennedy: An Unfinished Life (Robert Dallek)

This single volume biography of John F. Kennedy is an ambitious project trying to cover as many aspects of his life as possible, reasonably giving more coverage of his presidency compared to his life before being elected. To someone who wants to learn about the President, this book is a very useful read. The coverage is rather complete, and the tone unbiased. While giving to attention to much of the President's vision and efforts in realising them, the author has also not left out the human failings frequently associated with the President, namely his womanising. Beyond this, the author has given a great amount of details on the medical and physical conditions of John F. Kennedy, helping us to understand a lot more of what he had to endure physically while going through the grueling demands of a presidency.

It is obvious that the author did a great amount of research. Unfortunately, I found the writing in this book rather patchy. There were too many parts in the book where he almost quoted conversations after conversations in his attempt to relate the story. I found this sloppy. Although he was able to string enough quotes from different people to tell the story, I felt it lacking in effort. This was especially the case when relating the Cuban Missile Crisis. The author did not attempt to give his own voice, preferring to quote conversations wholesale, perhaps hoping that this would present the raw data to the readers.

Fortunately this was not always the case and there were in other chapters in the book when he did show his commendable ability to write. On page 605, I found his transition about the "trouble" very smooth and well-executed. Another example was when he included his thesis (at least this was the first time I heard it put this way) was when he was describing JFK's dilemma about Vietnam and Diem, bringing into consideration the US' decision to continue supporting Chiang Kai-Shek in China years earlier when he they knew he was corrupt and was not the one to win the war, and in Korea when US' intervention saved Seoul.

In the epilogue, the author went into an interesting speculation about the 'what-ifs', a 'must-do' for JFK biographers. This is an exercise that is fraught with danger because there is just no way anybody can know for sure. However, the author's attempt was a logical, reasonable and sound, making an extrapolation based on JFK's known positions about various issues, moderated by factors such as no longer having to worry about another election and possible developments in world events. Again, there is just no way to tell and so there always remain the possibility of one making an overly optimistic prediction based on our own over-estimation of the President.

As this book made clear, scholars who took a scientific approach to evaluating the achievements of JFK were normally underwhelmed. Perhaps one of the reasons people continue to think much of him is the belief that the world would indeed be a better had he lived. But perhaps it was because he died young, like Ayrton Senna who would always be the greatest F1 driver in many people's eyes. Yet if there was one thing that we ought to give JFK credit for, we should all remember that despite the tremendous pressure he faced during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he played a significant role in not letting it happen.

Briefings of McNamara tended to be sessions where people tried to fool him, and he tried to convince them they cannot.

(Find this book at Goodreads)

Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy (Eri Hotta)

Those who are interested in understanding of the events that led to Japan's fateful decision to attack Pearl Harbor will find this book an important one to read. It is one that is packed with information carefully written in an engaging way to provide great insights into how the Japanese eventually went into war with the US. What this book does is to show that such a momentous decision was not arrived in a clinical and logical fashion, rather  readers of this book would not help noticing how illogical, convoluted, and even preposterous the decision process was.

It should be stressed that the book's focus is more on the decision process, rather than the decision itself, which as a bad one was a given. That it was a bad decision was not only clear in hindsight, you will see from the book that there were more people (including the emperor) who believed that it was a bad decision to go to war with the US than those who believed it was right, which only makes it more perplexing. Representing those who were really pushing for war with the US was the Imperial Army and very vocal too. The rest, represented by the Imperial Navy, successive prime ministers, and other members of the cabinet knew it would be disastrous to go down that road, but as the story developed, the reader gets to see how the strange behaviours among the 'doves' eventually made their own positions untenable, and had to be driven along to war with the US.

The author used the concept of Honne to Tatemae to throw some light on these behaviours. This is the concept of saying something or saying something is a certain way but carrying with it an intended meaning. In simple terms, the opposite of "calling a spade a spade". The trouble with doing this was that the listener who did not understand this might misinterpret what the speaker was trying to say, but more seriously, as shown in this book, it could be maneuvered by the listener to mean something else totally. And many a times it was used to good effect by those who advocated war while everyone else looked helplessly at each other, hoping that someone else would find this one small gap to exploit so that they could heap on more doubts and hoped that it snowballed into something big enough for all to decide that war was a bad idea, apparently even the army faction was hoping for that while advocating war (p.g., 210).

Yet they did attempt to find a way out of the situation, initiating many contacts with the US which unfortunately led to nowhere. They attempted to have a summit and when that was not progressing well , Sato Kenryo was quoted in the book saying "What idiots they are in Washington! If they agreed to meet with Konoe without any conditions, everything would go their way." For many it would be hard to imagine staging this summit between two heads of states when everything Japan was saying and doing was pointing towards preparing for war. But for the Japanese leaders, there was no contradictions, they have to keep up the appearance while trying to avert war - Honne to Tatemae.

Dr Hotta wrote an earlier work Pan-Asianism and Japan's War 1931-1945 which I had enjoyed very much. It was written in the academic style and was not so easy to read. This one, Japan 1941, is clearly meant for lay-readers and is therefore much more readable. Unfortunately I think I was spoilt by her earlier book and had hoped that she would repeat that feat. She did in contents, but she had to avoid going into too much analysis in a book thus positioned. Still I must commend her for being very immaculate, for example she used "U.S." and not "US" and implanted her reasoned voice throughout. The inclusion of the timeline of major events in the book was of great value and the Prologue makes a compelling introduction to the whole book. I was however unsure about the purpose of including characters like Richard Sorge, the poet Kafū Nagai, and Soldier U. These are important people in their own rights but while it has added colour to the book, they were not important to the development of the author's narrative and sometimes came out distracting.

The author, being Japanese, has a nuanced understanding of her own culture and therefore was able to explain the behaviours of the Japanese in 1941 exceptionally well. Paradoxically it can be misinterpreted as an attempt to excuse their behaviours and so she would sometimes have to illuminate her own attitudes towards them and the war itself by criticising them severely. I think it is something that she had to do in order for us not to dismiss her too quickly.

We read history in the sometimes vain hope of learning from it, so that we do not repeat it. The lessons in this book were most obviously "what not to do / how not to behave when making an important decision." Many readers would take the series of events as too ridiculous to conceive that we would ever do the same. Yet we have to be careful; as illogical and unimaginable as they have behaved in 1941, would we not have done the same? How many of us would really stand up and confront a seemingly stupid idea? Have we not come across situations in which everyone sitting in a meeting knew that a course of action was disastrous but finding everyone quiet, kept to our own counsel? I certainly have. Somehow the long-term and more severe pain cannot make me suffer the short-term embarrassment. And we will go out of the meeting whispering to each other that the decision taken in the meeting was a wrong one. Everyone suddenly appeared to agree to something opposite of what was agreed upon in the meeting, but no one was really at fault, because "someone" else pushed everyone along.

Pay attention to all the conversations in the meetings in the book, pick a character who disagreed with the war, then ask what you would do if you were him.

(Find this book at Goodreads)