Description
Though the book highlights military matters, it also shows how campaigns were mounted alongside profound changes in politics, society, and culture-changes that ultimately contributed as much to the character of today's China as did the major battles. By analyzing the war as an international conflict, the author explains why so much of the present legitimacy of the Beijing government derives from its successes during the late 1940s, and reveals how the antagonism between China and the United States was born.
About the Author
Odd Arne Westad is a University Reader in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Among his many books is Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-1963 (Editor) (Stanford and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1998
Reviews
"Odd Arne Westad has written a key work on the civil-war period as well as an essential bibliographic starting point for further research." -- The China Journal
"This path-breaking, perceptive work merits wide circulation and systematic analysis." -- Canadian Journal of History
"This book is of fundamental importance to understanding twentieth-century Chinese history, comparative revolution, and early Cold War history. Weaving together strands of military, social, political, and international history, Westad provides by far the best empirically grounded, multi-archival, and comprehensive nationwide analysis of how the Chinese Communist Party achieved victory in the Chinese Civil War of 1946-1950." -- Journal of Cold War Studies
"Offers meticulous research, drawing on classic reports, recent memoirs, and scholarship in Chinese, Russian, and English based on archival research. . . . More important, [Westad] weaves a grand, sweeping epic of social, cultural, and economic conflict that includes but goes beyond political and military battles. . . . Highly recommended for academic libraries and collections in Chinese history." -- Library Journal
"Decisive Encounters is a highly readable, comprehensive, and reliable account of a war whose importance we all know but which nonetheless has received little attention." -- PACIFIC AFFAIRS
"This remarkable survey of a crucial period of Chinese history deserves to be widely read." -- Choice
Book Information
ISBN 9780804744843
Author Odd Arne Westad
Format Paperback
Page Count 427
Imprint Stanford University Press
Publisher Stanford University Press
Weight(grams) 594g