Hans van de Ven is Professor of Modern Chinese History in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of the British Academy.
Van de Ven’s book challenges contemporary memory by not only
returning to the ‘war within the war,’ but also reclaiming war as a
medium of politics. In doing so, his sensitive account recovers the
Communist Party’s ‘People’s War’ (or ‘National Liberation War’ in
van de Ven’s words), rather than Nationalist anti-fascism, as
China’s most consequential legacy from World War II.
*Los Angeles Review of Books*
This is one of the best [books on China] I’ve seen in recent
years…An exceptionally rich work of history, wary of moral
posturing, unusually subtle, and beautifully written.
*First Things*
China in the twentieth century was as much at war with itself as
with Japan and, in Korea, with the United States. In this
outstanding account of modern China through the lens of war, van de
Ven narrates this history with immense clarity, while also taking
care to show how the violence of these decades shaped, and often
consumed, the lives of individual Chinese fated to live in
difficult times.
*Timothy Brook, author of Collaboration: Japanese Agents and
Local Elites in Wartime China*
China at War is far superior to any comparable treatment I have
seen. Sober, comprehensive, and well written, it is a book that
will last.
*Arthur Waldron, University of Pennsylvania*
A masterful narrative of the fifteen long years of war during which
China was destroyed and transformed. For readers interested in
military history on a global scale who may or may not have much
knowledge of modern Chinese history, this book will become a
classic of its kind.
*Stephen MacKinnon, Arizona State University*
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