Stilwell and the American Experience in China

Barbara Tuchman examines the history of Sino-American relations in the 20th Century through the life of the highly gifted soldier, Joseph Stilwell. Through his Army career, we see him intertwined with China and her struggles through the first five decades of this century. We follow Stilwell as he meets an exceptional number of Chinese leaders of all political persuasions and developes an intimate knowledge of China. Flown to China after the start of World War II, General Stilwell is faced with a crumbling tactical and strategic situation. He takes charge of the troops around him and leads them out of Burma, where they had ended up, into India. He refused air evacuation and walked out with his men and stragglers that he met along the way. It was a massive display of leadership skills and dedication to his craft as a soldier. General Stilwell was not an easy man to work for or with, as Tuchman describes in several situations. His lack of tact and at times patience might be seen as handicaps; while the leaders of Nationalist China schemed to have him removed or at least become more pliable, he was loved by his combat soldiers, American and Chinese alike. He sacrificed himself in the pursuit of an elusive and probably impossible goal, full Sino-American combat operations. World War II ended in September 1945. In October 1946, General Stilwell was dead. His final award in a long and distinguished career was not another medal of which he had many, but the Combat Infantryman's Badge; worn by all American soldiers who have seen combat service since 1941. It is the badge of a unique brotherhood and one that I am glad to see General Stilwell was allowed to join as this distinction is not given to senior officers. This is a tremendously valuable book. As America enters into new relations with China, it might be time for this book to be re-released. It can't hurt.

its government, and the people.

The first subject is well written and is in Chronological format, from Stilwell's early life, the academy, World War I, somewhere to go after the war (China), and World War II. Joe Stilwell died almost immediately after the war ended. Chiang Kai-Shek spent the whole war trying to keep the Chinese Communists, the other warlords, and the Japanese from taking over his armies. The American's expected the Chinese to actually FIGHT during WW2, but in general, they ordered and received American Supplies, which they saved to fight the Communists. In part, this caused Vinegar Joe Stilwell to get his nickname. He wanted to, and planned to fight the Japanese using Chinese troops. This did happen for a few days in late 1944, early 1945, but that was about it.

The Second subject is told through the use of Chinese proverbs, and how Chiang Kai-Shek used them against the Americans and the Japanese. One was "A battle not fought, is a battle won." To illustrate this concept (somewhat) the author said that Stilwell had inspected one of the Chinese armies including their well sighted, camouflaged artillery emplacements. Several days later, the Japanese approached the area, and the artillery was gone. Stilwell asked the Chinese Army Commander where they went. He said that "The artillery makes us the best army in China, but if we shot the artillery, the Japanese will bomb us and we won't have it anymore so we won't be the best army in China anymore." It was more important in China to HAVE an army that it was to USE the army. Another common Chinese way of doing business was to tell anyone asking a question, the answer that they wanted to here. Many promises were made, with no intention on the part of the Chinese, of their ever being kept. I wonder how this type of thing effects our relations with them now.

This is a remarkable book and well worth reading nearly four decades after its initial publication. Tuchman is a gifted author and her subject, "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, is an outrageous, memorable figure. Even readers with a limited familiarity with China or the Pacific theater during the Second World War will find "Stilwell and the American Experience in China" captivating.

Joe Stilwell was, to say the least, an unusual Army officer for his generation. He had a gift for languages and was drawn to career-limiting foreign assignments from the moment in he left West Point. He spoke fluent Spanish and French before he accepted a chance posting to China in his mid-thirties primarily because it offered the opportunity to get out of the country and learn a new language and culture. By the time the US entered the Second World War, Stilwell was the most highly rated Corps commander in the Army, but also had many years experience in China and spoke fluent Mandarin. Although George Marshall wanted him to command the first US ground campaign of the war - the TORCH landings in North Africa - Stilwell was sent to Asia because no one else was better qualified to serve in China, a region of great importance after the British were booted quickly out of Hong Kong, Singapore and the rest of East Asia by the Japanese.

The irony of this book is that Stilwell was at once the best-qualified officer in the US Army to serve in Asia in support of Chiang Kai Shek's KMT Army and also the worst possible choice because of his abrasive mien. On the one hand, no other senior officer had his command of the language, years in country, or understanding of the Chinese culture. On the other hand, no other senior officer was as tactless or boorish - two qualities that do not serve one well in Asia. For instance, Stilwell had the habit of assigning mocking and often cruel nicknames to his tormentors, real and perceived. Almost from the beginning, Chiang Kai Shek, his nominal superior in the China theater, was "Peanut" - an insulting moniker that Stilwell used rather openly and regularly and was well-known by the Generalissimo and his staff, an incredible affront to the Chinese sense of position and authority. Even more insulting and offensive was Stilwell's occasional reference to his polio-stricken command-in-chief as "Rubber legs."

Yet, Tuchman is clearly a fan of Stilwell's. She sees in him the same talent, passion and energy that led Secretary of War Stimson and Chief of Staff Marshall to put him in the role and steadfastly defend him in the face of repeated requests for his dismissal by scores of highly placed US, British and Chinese officials, whose number included FDR himself. But after reading "Stilwell" one cannot help but think that Stimson and Marshall made a mistake in sticking with Joe for so long.

"Stilwell" also reads like a case study in the perils and heartaches of coalition warfare. From the outset, the major allies in the CBI Theater - the US, British and Chinese - were fundamentally at odds over objectives and therefore completely out of sync on strategy. The British did not see the point in bothering with China at all and wanted only to regain their colonial possessions, Hong Kong and Singapore above all, and Burma only if convenient and if it could be done without mixing Chinese and Indian troops. Chiang Kai Shek, on the other hand, had little interest in ejecting the Japanese from China in a bloody, all-out racial war, but rather preferred to stockpile American supplies and allow the US Navy and nascent Air Forces to slowly erode the Japanese war machine. Meanwhile, the US was guided by FDR's dream of seeing China emerge as one of the world's great post-war powers, fully on the side of the United States and committed to democracy. Tuchman stresses repeatedly that the US public, and to a certain extent the US government, was greatly misled on the truth of the KMT regime. The missionary lobby and other important Chiang supporters, including high-level visitors that were successfully hoodwinked, such as defeated presidential candidate Wendell Wilkie, generated a flood of propaganda that gave the average American a wildly unrealistic and positive impression of the Chinese ally. Tuchman contends that Stilwell himself saw the balderdash written about the KMT as the primary culprit in the inability or unwillingness of Washington to change policy once it became clear that the continued support Chiang was a waste of resources and American prestige and position.

"Stilwell" succeeds on many levels and will likely remain in print and widely read for decades to come. It is a stellar blend of biography, military history, American foreign policy, US-China relations, and a case study in coalition warfare.

Although not Tuchman's finest work, Stilwell is an elegantly written and solid work that displays Tuchman's penchant for bringing obscure points in history alive. This is one of Tuchman's last books, and displays the grace of writing that marks her later works. This book is easily readable and accessible and does a fine job of capturing the character of Stilwell so that you come away feeling as if you know him.

If there is a flaw in this book, it is the subject matter itself. The experience of the US in the China/Burma/India (CBI) theater of WWII was very frustrating and inactive, bogged down by political difficulties in dealing with Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese Nationalist ruler who was not interested in actively engaging the Japanese in offensive operations (he preferred the Allies do his work for him). The portion of the book which covers this period from about 1942-1945 reflects the frustrating and troubled dealings between Stilwell and Chiang and Stilwells largely failed efforts to get the Chinese Army fighting. Lots of attention is given to the political back and forth which is interesting at first but frankly becomes rather repetitive. However the first third of the book, the US experience in China leading up to the war, and the last third, when the Chinese Army (briefly) moves into Burma and Stilwell is finally recalled is also interesting. You'll just have to slog through the middle one third wondering when things are going to get moving.

This book contains a glaring error when Tuchman refers to the ancient Romans being afraid of "Alaric the Hun." It's surprising this made into the book, as one clearly suspects she meant to refer to Attila (Alaric was a Visigoth not a Hun).

Other than those issues, the book is an entertaining and educational one on a topic that receives little attention. It's worth reading, particularly for Tuchman fans who will enjoy her familiar lively style of writing.

General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell was an extraordinary person. His unique character, sharp mind and impatience toward arrogant people constantly caused conflicts with the people he worked with. He was also fully immersed in Chinese culture, mannerism, and as well, a fluent Mandarin speaker - he understood China like very few in the West do.

In this book, Tuchman combines a comprehensive description of U.S. - China relations from 1911-1945 along with a detailed biography of "Vinegar Joe" from his first visit to China in 1911 until after the time he served as commander in China during World War II.

Along with the narrative of "Vinegar Joe" in China, Tuchman also provides insightful nuggets of American and British foreign policy in the Far East. Included is an interesting account of the intense relationship between Stilwell, who was given the difficult task of training the Chinese army to fight against the Japanese, and Chiang Kai-Shek, who was reluctant to send his army to fight the Japanese, mostly due to the fear that a Chinese general with a highly trained division could overthrow him.

In conclusion, Tuchman's great writing skills and her extensive research provides us with a great book, which is highly recommend for anyone who wishes to learn more about Stilwell, China and World War II in general.

Who was Joseph Stilwell? What part did he play in the unfolding of China�s troubled century? It has been said that "men make a lot of history, and history makes a lot of men." To what extent was Stilwell "made" by the history he lived through? And how might the recent history of China have been different if another were in his position? How did the relationship between Stilwell and Chiang Kai-Shek (Jiang Jieshi) affect their joint ability to save China from the Japanese? To what extent was the conflict between them made irrelevant by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Chiang Kai-Shek always said that the Japanese were a disease of the skin, but the Communists were a disease of the heart. Was he correct to hold back from fighting the Japanese so that he could spare his reserves for the inevitable conflict with the Communists? Might he have been more effective on both fronts if he had been more aggressive against the Japanese? And how would present day China be different if the Gomingdang rather than the Communist Party had been running China for past 50 years? What implications does this story have for the "Taiwan question?"
Nothing stands out more in my study of 20th Century China, than the frustration of so many situations where there were simply no good choices. Of course, I am not Chinese, so I suppose I am able, because of that, to view the period with some measure of detachment. But I was born in Tokyo, and grew up in the north of Japan, so, while I am always viewed as a foreigner in Asia, I am, in fact, a child of Asia, and keenly interested in what factors contributed to the painful history China has lived since the revolution of 1911.
One of the most interesting comparisons in this book is between Joseph Stilwell, and Claire Chennault. Barbara Tuchman clearly favors Stilwell, to the point where I would say that if this book were your only source of information about Chennault, and who he was, you probably would not have a very high opinion of him. But even Tuchman must admit that Claire Chennault had much better rapport with Chiang Kai-Shek than Stilwell.
Let me try to phrase the matter in very basic terms: Joseph Stilwell was a brilliant general who�s relational skills, and more importantly his relationship sense was seriously wanting. Throughout the book, I am struck, not by a deficiency of intelligence, or determination, or persistence, but by a lack of basic humanity. This deficiency hangs over Stilwell like a cloud, polluting his relationships with those with whom it was most important for him to get along.
For starters, he was one of the ungodliest officers in the history of the U.S. Army. To his daughter, he wrote about the "criminal instincts I picked up by being forced to go to Church and Sunday School, and seeing how little real good religion does anybody, I advise passing them all up and using common sense instead." This cynical godlessness expressed itself in many ways. Stilwell was generally contemptuous and disrespectful toward those with whom he disagreed (mostly Chiang Kai-Shek). This was a source of irritation to FDR, who felt that Chiang Kai-Shek was a head of state, and ought to be accorded the level of respect due one in that position. Stilwell did not see it that way. He constantly referred to Chiang in his diary as "Peanut," or "Hickory Head." Several times he referred to FDR himself as "Rubber Legs." The Japanese he called "buck-toothed bastards."
Both Churchill and MacArthur possessed a spiritual dimension that was completely foreign to Stilwell. Churchill used to say, "In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity; in peace, goodwill. Stilwell probably should be given credit for understanding the first point, and perhaps the second in some measure. But for the rest of it, he was clueless. No, I mean really, completely clueless. When MacArthur ruled Japan as a virtual dictator after World War II, he issued a request for 10,000 missionaries. He also contacted the Gideons and requested as many bibles as they could supply. Whatever one may say about MacArthur�s personal spiritual life, he did understand that the essential problem of post-war Japan was a spiritual crisis. Stilwell had no such insight. Following a tour of the gutted and burned out districts of Yokohama after World War II, he said, "We gloated over the destruction and came in feeling fine."

At one point, after he had been removed from China, he allowed himself to believe that he would be chosen over MacArthur for command of forces in the Pacific. By God�s mercy, he was not chosen, and the Japanese people experienced the big-heartedness of MacArthur.
This book is old. It came out in 1971. In spite of that, this is a very useful book. Barbara Tuchman was a war correspondent who personally witnessed much of the Sino-Japanese war during the 30s. She is very thorough, detailed and organized. She also possesses a level of objectivity which is refreshing in this day and age when so much written history is editorial in nature.
I have been pretty hard on Stilwell. Perhaps I have been so turned off by his acerbic nature that I have tended not to appreciate his brilliance as an officer. Marshall, who was always Stilwell�s strongest supporter, said that Stilwell was "his own worst enemy." The point, here, I guess, is that many good qualities can be obscured by a little bit of folly. Nonetheless, this, as I said, is a very useful book. It isn�t all about Stilwell. It is about a very important point in China�s history, and the way personality affected policy. Understanding the American experience in China is critical to comprehending how events developed toward the culmination of the conflict, in 1949.

Two-time Pulitzer prize winner Barbara Tuchman may be the pre-eminent historian of our age. What makes her so good isn't just superior scholarship, but superior presentation - she's eminently readable. She has an eye for anecdote and a lively sense of humor that frequently has the reader laughing. My intent here is both to discuss General Joe Stilwell and to provide a taste of Tuchman for the uninitiated.
General George Marshall, who directed America's war effort, considered Stilwell his best corps commander before the war. But Stilwell never commanded US formations in Europe, where he would have excelled. Reading of his personal habits and professional preparation, one is reminded of Erwin Rommel. Had Stilwell been at Kasserine Pass, things might have turned out very differently than they did.
Stilwell never got to WWII Europe because he was also the US Army's best Orientalist at a time when his skills were needed to train the Chinese Army to fight the murderous Japanese invaders. Stilwell had a high regard for the Chinese soldier as fighting material; but his fate was to work at the highest levels, with Chiang Kai-shek and Company, and his impatience and refusal to accept the second-rate made for tough sledding during the Kuomintang era of corruption, ineptitude, and clashing cultures (Chinese and other powers') that set the stage for the Communist takeover following WWII. At every turn, Stilwell's attempts to get the Chinese Army on its feet were frustrated by Chiang's double-dealing. There were cultural reasons for this-the identical problem would later frustrate US efforts in Vietnam-but it seems an unusually cruel fate for one of Stilwell's disposition to have to deal with it.
Just as devilish, for other reasons, were his allies. Stilwell detested the British, and Tuchman seems unimpressed by them, also. "No nation has ever produced a military history of such verbal nobility as the British. Retreat or advance, win or lose, blunder or bravery, murderous folly or unyielding resolution, all emerge clothed in dignity and touched with glory. Every engagement is gallant, every battle a decisive action, every campaign produces generalship hailed as the most brilliant of the war. Other nations attempt but never quite achieve the same self-esteem. It was not by might but by the power of her self-image that Britain in her century dominated the world."
Americans and Brits of course had to work together in the CBI, and friction was continuous, as much because of personal pique as differing institutional approaches to leadership. "Mountbatten took an intense interest in publicity, especially his own. When he visited the troops he liked to give an impression of `spontaneous vitality.' He would drive up in his jeep, vault nimbly, jump agilely onto a packing case carefully placed in advance, and deliver `an absolutely first class and apparently impromptu speech-simple, direct and genuinely inspiring. The men loved it.'"
Stilwell did things differently. A direct, plainspoken man, spartan of personal habit and shunning many of the perquisites of position, he "liked to talk to the men unrecognized, which frequently occurred. Once riding in a jeep wearing his long-visored Chinese soldier's cap like a hunter's and holding a carbine across his knees, he passed a group of Merrill's Marauders, of whom on growled, `Christ, a goddamn duck hunter.' A GI in an engineer unit was more sympathetic. `Look at that poor old man. Some draft boards will do anything.'
From Stilwell's diaries Tuchman recreates the US Army of the period. On a trip to Washington, Stilwell wrote that he was surrounded "by clerks rushing in and out of swinging doors, people with papers rushing after other people with papers, groups in corners whispering in huddles, everybody jumping up just as you start to talk, buzzers ringing, telephones ringing, rooms crowded, clerks banging away at typewriters. `Give me ten copies of this AT ONCE.' `Get that secret file out of the safe.' Everybody furiously smoking cigarettes, everybody passing you on to someone else. Someone with a loud voice and a mean look out to appear and yell `HALT! You crazy bastards. SILENCE! You imitation ants. Now half of you get out of town and the other half sit down and don't move for one hour.' Then they could burn up all the papers and start fresh."
There is plenty to admire in this man. He was decades ahead of his time in his approach to physical conditioning and preparation. His career largely represents a bright man with exemplary self-discipline and dedication. For all his excellence, he did have one major professional defect: he did not "play the game" in ratings and awards, so that his subordinates didn't get as good ratings or as many medals as their peers in other units. This cost them promotions and professional chances later on. Stilwell himself actually turned down medals and never sought promotion, but few ordinary mortals are made of such stern stuff. He owed it to his men to do right by them according to the system they all served.
But he was an extraordinary man during extraordinary times. It's our good fortune that his biographer was the extraordinary Barbara Tuchman. This book should be on the reading lists of professional historians and military men alike, and of anyone who wants to learn something of Chinese culture.

It is always a pleasure to read Barbara Tuchman's books, the 1970 "Stillwell and the American Experience in China" is no exception.
It has often been alleged that the "fall of China" to the Communist Party in 1949 was the spur to the paranoid period in United States politics that followed 1949. This whole era has been called the "McCarthy Era." The question of "Who lost China?" played a big role in the politics of the early 1950s.
Consequently, "Stillwell and the American Experience in China is a very important book for a substantive understanding of the events that led to the 1949 Revolution in China...Tuchman's writing keeps the reader's attention to the very end.

Western observers often describe China as "inscrutable," but perhaps a lot of the mystery surrounding the Chinese condition comes from the fact that Western eyes are so focused on China's culture and history that they are blind to China's geography and demographics, which are ultimately the roots of the culture and history.

To explain China, we need to understand three basic principles about China:

1) China is so vast in terms of land and people that it sees itself as an enclosed universe onto itself.

2) China's overpopulation and its limited natural resources mean that the Chinese economy and political system are both based on a national zero sum game of exploiting the peasantry.

3) This exploitation of the peasantry is so convenient and lucrative it becomes the elite's raison d'etre, which in turn leads to a stagnant inward-looking authoritarian political order and philosophy that fears progressive ideas as much as peasant rebellions.

To see how these three principles explain China, consider Barbara Tuchman's Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45. It's a brilliant biography which attempts, through the prism of the extraordinary career of one of America's finest tactical field commanders, to explain how an army of one million Japanese could overrun a nation of 400 million, and why once Chiang Kai-shek had successfully manipulated the United States into helping China against Japan he began demanding bribes for defending China.

In becoming Chiang Kai-shek's advisor and director of America's Lend-Lease program in China, the Sinophile Joseph Stilwell wanted to infuse Chinese soldiers with the American fighting spirit of individual initiative he had seen so triumphantly prevail over the ancien regimes of Europe in World War I. Stillwell's major enemy in teaching the Chinese to stand up for themselves wasn't the Japanese, but Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese ancien regime he so personified:

"It was a long time before Stilwell could bring himself to admit that Chiang did not really want a well-trained, well-equipped fighting force; that such a force represented to him less a boon than a threat; that he feared that an effective 30 divisions might come under a new leader or group, undermining or challenging his own control, and that Stilwell's proposal to remove incompetent commanders would remove those loyal and beholden to him; that he was not interested in an army that could fight the Japanese but only in one that could sustain him internally; that for this believed it sufficed to have more divisions and more guns, planes and tanks than the Communists."

Chiang thought like so many Chinese leaders before him, believing that China's size and culture would eventually shallow the invader, and thus his priority was to maintain his position within China, not strengthen China's position in the world: "[Chiang] had made the same choice as his predecessor, Prince Kung, Regent at the time of the Taiping Rebellion, who said the rebels were a disease of China's vitals, the barbarians an affliction only of the limbs."

Much more painful for Stillwell, a general who prided himself on his closeness to and compassion for the infantryman, was to see the contempt the Chinese elite had towards the people they led, a contempt borne out of both fear and reliance. One of Chiang's officers told Stilwell that one battle's 600,000 Chinese casualties was "really a good thing [because] Chinese soldiers are all bandits, robbers, thieves, and rascals. So we send them to the front and they get killed off and in that way we are eliminating our bad elements." Educated at West Point, Stillwell was from a distinguished military family, and was shocked to hear from the same officer that "the Chinese learned long ago to make the lower classes do the fighting. At first the nobles fought, but they soon got over that and made the people do it for them."

Soon enough, Stilwell witnessed for himself the Chinese elite's callousness. While Stilwell was in India preparing for the Burma offensive, the Chinese soldiers sent to his command were packed on a cargo plane and naked because their officers thought "it would be foolish to waste uniforms if the men were to be given new ones anyway." When an American officer complained to his Chinese counterpart with a list of the soldiers who froze to death on the plane, the Chinese offer threw the list into the garbage can.

Stilwell eventually became so disgusted with Chiang's regime that he compared America's Asian ally to its European nemesis: "a one-party government, supported by a Gestapo and headed by an unbalanced man with little education."

But Tuchman, armed with the hindsight of history and perspective, understood that Chiang's situation was as hopeless as Stilwell's mission of reform was impossible. China's size and population made it unmanageable and ungovernable, and those who rose to the top could not lead, but at best hang on:

"For a hundred years the Chinese had struggled to unburden themselves of misgovernment only to have each effort of reform or revolution turn itself back into oppression and corruption, as if the magic prince were bewitched in reverse to turn back into a toad. China's misgovernment was not so much a case of absolute as of ineffective rule. If power corrupts, weakness in the seat of power, with its constant necessity of deals and bribes and compromising arrangements, corrupts even more...

"Chiang Kai-shek's authority, like that of Europe's medieval kings, rested on the more or less voluntary fealty of provincial barons...Chiang was not an activist possessed of compelling energy to overturn the old. He changed nothing. He was a holder with no goal but to hold."

In 1944, Stilwell was recalled by President Roosevelt at the Generalissimo's behest, and he died of stomach cancer in a San Francisco hospital shortly after. The cancer had been spreading for quite some time, but Stilwell, oddly enough, never felt any pain. Did he feel no pain because he was so absorbed by his China mission, or did he feel no pain because China had taught him not to feel anymore?

We'll never know the answer to that, but we know what happened to Stilwell's China and what will continue to happen to China. Here are the book's final words: "In the end China went her own way as if the Americans had never come."

This book illustrates well the dangers of involvement in a foreign country - even during wartime when the cause appears justified.

Stillwell was obviously a good candidate to be America's representative; he had already spent several years in China and spoke the language. He certainly was not someone, common in this day and age, who arrives at the airport hotel and is surrounded by an entourage of well-wishers. Stillwell was independent-minded and often clashed with both the Chinese government and those in Washington.

It did not take Stillwell long to realize that the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek were not acting in the best interests of the Chinese people. The Chinese peasant had to pay a wide assortment of taxes to the Kuomintang ruling party, where corruption and graft were endemic. The soldiers in their army were not even being fed and the wounded and sick were left to die.

What is apparent is the vast disconnect between those in the foreign country and the illusions of those, in this case, the United States. Chiang was portrayed as a great and struggling democrat whose country was being invaded and ravaged by the Japanese; only the last part of this is true. Chiang and his wife were featured as the "Man and Wife" of the year in Time magazine.

It was only in 1943 that Roosevelt started to re-evaluate the enormous amount of Lend-lease funds and equipment that were being poured into China. Instead of using this to fight the Japanese, it was being hoarded and sold on the black market - the money disappearing at an alarming rate into the expanding coffers of the Kuomintang generals. Time and again Stillwell would attempt various methods to persuade Chiang and his generals to fight. Chiang and his wife were crafty politicians who knew how to manoeuvre between Stillwell and Washington and keep the Lend-Lease flow alive. They had there own powerful lobbyists in Washington pushing their "noble" fight against Japanese oppression. They could hardly mention that they were spending more time fighting the Chinese communists, and that these same Chinese communists were far more successful in reforming and improving the life of the masses of the Chinese peasants.

This is a long book, with the advantage that one gets a detailed look at foreign entanglements that are still valid to this day. I found the sections on the fighting in Burma (now Myanmar) belaboured. Given the wide scope of World War II, sadly, the sacrifices here, had little impact on Japan's downfall.

Stillwell almost comes off as a masochist with his futile persistence in trying to get Chiang Kai-shek to reform his government and his army over many, many years. Stilwell's dream was to have the Chinese army defeat and remove the Japanese army from China, and then participate in the invasion of Japan - this was an illusion on a grand scale.

I found a more interesting viewpoint of this entire dilemma in the book of Hannah Pakula, "The Last Empress".

I grew up hearing Stilwell lost China; General Chennault was a hero, Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang were progressives and the Communists in China were a bunch of ignorant, greedy rabble.

While I knew most of the previous statements were untrue to various extents, the stories in this book give a balanced account of a period that was first reported to the U.S. in the context of support for the war effort - and soon eclipsed by the events of post-war China. This book covers an important period of American foreign policy and military involvement that has been overlooked for the most part by contemporary authors on China.

Vinegar Joe is portrayed for what he was - a professional military officer asked to do the impossible with limited resources. That he accomplished much, both personally and for China is a tribute to his tenacity. I agreed with the author that Vinegar Joe did not lose China; in fact, if anyone in power had listened to him China would not have had to suffer from the post-war horrors of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.

Denver Mullican

This book was published in 1972 during the middle of US involvement in Vietnam. It must have been tough for many of the politicians of that time (and many other observers) to see the parallels to the mistakes the US made in pouring money into Chaing Kai Shek (Jiang Jieshi) and what we had done and were doing with the Diem/Thieu regimes in South Vietnam. The books is important today, not only for the perspective it provides into the evolution of American paranoia of Communism in the late 40's, 50's nd 60's, but we still have a propensity for pouring money into questionable regimes that do not have popular support simply because we are afraid of what the popular support might produce. But as Tuchman clearly demonstrates, sooner or later it happens anyway, no matter what we do.

This book explodes the myths and misconceptions of the American people during a time of great upheaval in China and Southeast Asia. It lays out the mistakes and misunderstandings of the America leaders and statesmen in trying to work with the real and supposed leaders of China. Covering the final times of Chinese Warlords through the times of Sun Yat Sen, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and into WWII with the Nationalist Chinese and Mao's Communist movement, this book reveals all of the history and understanding that only Barbara Tuchman is equipped to accomplish. This book holds no punches and exposes the many mistakes made by American leaders, who did not listen to Stilwell, in making foreign policy in an area of the world where foreign policy and gamesmanship was created and practiced to a high art. For example, Madame Chaing's propaganda trips to the US is an excellent example of how the American people and its leaders were duped into believing that the Nationalist Chinese were doing all they could to fight off the Japanese. When in reality they stockpiled the weaponry supplied by the US for their battles against Mao's Communists instead of their intended use against Japan. Ms. Tuchman enlightens the reader that when the Communists and Mao took control of China their hatred of the US for supporting the Nationalist Chinese was a foregone conclusion. Ms. Tuchman's coverage of the China, Burma, India (CBI) theater is masterful as well as her handling of "Vinegar" Joe Stilwell. "Vinegar" Joe is a General more skillfull, humble and knowledgeable than any US General to have ever held the rank. He was a master of winning battles and achieving success with the poorest health conditions, meagerest of men, supplies and support. If Joe Stilwell had the support given to Eisenhower or MacArthur, "Vinegar" Joe would have been recognized as one of America's greatest Generals. But then again, Joe Stilwell was a humble man who got the job done and didn't much care who got the credit. It is unfortunate that Ms Tuchman is no longer with us. This one book (which I have read three times) lays the ground work for understanding Asia and the thinking processes of its leadership in the present world.

Tuchman's detailed history describes U.S. General Joseph Stillman's experiences in China, including his arduous campaign to remove the Japanese from the country during World War II. It provides a very useful context for modern China's complex relationships with the United States, Japan, and other countries in Asia. The military descriptions represent one of the best accounts I've read of the value of perseverance against seemingly impossible odds.

This book was written almost thirty years ago, when Americans were still in the dark about the true devilish nature of Mao's communist revolution. The author relied exclusively on Stillwell's side of material. Stillwell is perhaps the most influential figure in confusing the Americans' understanding of not only the Chinese nationalists but also the Chinese communists. America paid a heavy price for this tragic blunder in judgement and lost close to 100,000 soldiers in Korea and Vietnam in wars directly or indirectly against the Chinese communists. In a way, 9-11 can also be traced back to the same blunder.
The most famous quote of the books is perhaps "China is not and has never been "ours" to lose". This reflects her ignorance of the goal of effective foreign policy. True, US cannot dictate what the Chinese choose, but nor should it allow Stalin to turn China into a puppet of the Soviet Union and a sworn enemy of the United States. Recent studies have amply demonstrated that while Truman was sabotaging Chiang's government, Staing was actively supplying weapons to Mao.
If you are seriously interested in the truth of Stillwell's experience in China, you should also read this book: General Stilwell in China, 1942-1944: the full story by Jingchun Liang. Some local libraries still carry it.

Barbara Tuchman's Pulitzer-winning history, STILWELL and the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN CHINA should be a must-read for every US historian, politician, or businessman dealing with the Middle Kingdom. Tuchman makes a very valid central point- that America doesn't 'get' China, understand recent Chinese history, or interact well with Chinese officials.

That theme has been espoused by others and we should ask if it is so. I can confidently say that Tuchman makes a compelling case. She uses old Vinegar Joe and his relationship with Chiang Kaishek (Jiang Jieshi)as a case study. \

Thus, although STILWELL stands well on its own as a history of US-China relations during WWII or as a biography of the general, those strengths should not obscure the main theme: that the US has not pursued relations with China effectively or listened to our experts.

Before those reading this review start voting "not helpful," let me interject that I speak fluent Mandarin, have lived in Taiwan and the mainland, have been to most of the places described in this history, have been a US diplomat in the PRC, and had an association with the Stilwell Museum in Chongqing.

Tuchman's book is full of nuggets about the life of Chiang and Stilwell, and has many other interesting people woven in: MacArthur, Pat Hurley, Pershing, Mao, Zhou Enlai, Terry and the Pirates, etc. That alone makes the book an excellent read, a fact furthered by Ms. Tuchman's accessible style.

Yet, her main point still hasn't poked anyone in Washington or the US public in the eye, apparently: that the US still sufferes from the delusion that it can somehow "control" or "change" China. As Tuchman remarks, China is not and has never been "ours" to lose, win, or modify.

U.S. Gen. Joseph Stilwell had a boundless appetite for problem-solving, but in China he discovered a problem even he couldn't handle. Barbara Tuchman's 1970 history uses Stilwell as the foreground figure to address the question of China's underperformance in World War II and its subsequent conversion into America's communist adversary.

Without denying Tuchman's basic soundness and readability, I found myself interested in "Stilwell And The American Experience" less for what it said about Stilwell than what it said about the time the book was published. In 1970, the U.S. was mired in a painful Asian war after extracting ourselves from another some 20 years before. The anti-communist "witch hunts" of the 1950s were recent history. Tuchman clearly writes from what Gore Vidal would call an "anti-anti-communist" perspective, bemoaning the lack of a Stilwell-led U.S. drive to kick out China's Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek in favor of Mao Tse-tung.

"What course Chinese Communism might have taken if an American connection had been brought to bear is a question that lost opportunities have made forever unanswerable," Tuchman opines here. "The only certainty is that it could not have been worse."

This wasn't Stilwell's perspective, however. A political conservative who undertook his assignment as America's man in China helping against the Japanese invader with an optimistic mindset regarding Chiang, he quickly soured on the petty, louche dictator he dubbed "Peanut". As Tuchman makes clear here, Chiang was uninterested in fighting Japan after 1941, figuring correctly if selfishly that the U.S. and its allies would do that job. Chiang was out for Chaing, soaking his allies for cash and supplies to prop him up against the Communist rebels in the north.

The situation makes for a compelling read - for a while. Then, as Tuchman proceeds to make the same points over again, about Chiang's indifference and Stilwell's frustration, I began to wonder if this was too much book for too little story. I think it was.

"He did not have the tact or capacity to deal with opinions which he held in contempt, and contempt came to him easily," Tuchman writes, though much more of the book is spent validating Stilwell's contempt for both his Chinese and British allies than documenting why venting his spleen wasn't a good idea. Truthfully, it's hard imagining any other reaction to either Chiang's profiteering or his conniving wife's airs of snobbish entitlement. Patton, De Gaulle, and Bernard Montgomery were handfuls, too, but Dwight Eisenhower managed somehow. Stilwell didn't, a fact Tuchman acknowledges only grudgingly.

The book is best at the beginning. Tuchman frames the physical and political landscape of China in vivid detail, obviously filtered from her own experience as a traveling reporter before the war. Stilwell began his China career just before World War I, and Tuchman lays out the varied personalities of the warlords Stilwell had to work with in those days. Whether building a road in west-central China or leading a march of war refugees through Burma, Tuchman develops in Stilwell a compelling central figure for some worthy adventure stories well-told.

A pungent truth-teller with a gift for the withering wisecrack, Stilwell left behind a readable record Tuchman often uses to good effect. But the fact he was a good man in the wrong job seems to pass her by, even as she spends nearly 600 pages all but spelling it out.

Stillwell and the American Experience, is everything it claims to be a well written and an interesting story, told by one of the greatest historians of the twentieth century. It has a captavating introduction which draws the reader; however, about half-way through the book it begins to become somewhat repetitive and laggy, one almost feels as if he is experiencing this agonizing political war with Chaing Kia-Shek. But overall a good book about a trying time.

Barbara Tuchman sheds much light on a time in history that is very much misunderstood,and,of which there is very little knowledge. I read Stilwell many years ago and think it should be reprinted,It would be very informative as to the actual history of China in the 20th century,and how she evolved into what she is today.Russ Strand

Tuchman is a historian par excellence with interesting tidbits and anecdotes that flavor an otherwise complicated review of U.S. Chinese relations from the 1920's to the tumultuous war years. Her depiction of Stillwell is too one-sided and flawed. The irascible general, although very conscientious and dedicated to bettering the Chinese Army also had a tendency of operating like a pro-Consul. Allied strategy also was more interested in protecting UK's and U.S. special interests and not so much in liberating mainland China from the Japanese vise. Why should Chinese troops go fight in Burma to relieve the Brits when the bulk of China was being enslaved and its inhabitants treated like lab rats? This strategic disconnect ultimately led to the vast misunderstanding between FDR and Chiang and to FDR's willingness to pull the plug on Chiang. I hope that a future book with balanced views from both Chinese and US/UK perspectives will settle the score in the interest of objectivity.

This is not just a book but a comprehensive education for anyone concerned with the love-hate relationship between American and China. Too bad it came out at such a late date. To me, both and Korean and Vietnam wars might have been avoided had it come out in the late 1940s or early 1950s

This book is a fascinating read (though does get somewhat repetitive) but I can't help wondering why she didn't include more perspective on China's internal struggles -- and why Stillwell didn't factor it in to his negotiations with Chiang. The book repeatedly gives the impression that Chiang was building military strength, taking it from the Americans under the pretext of fighting the Japanese with it, simply to intimidate his rivals. There was a lot more than intimidation going on.

This author is incredible and is by far my favorite. The insight on China in the first 100 pages is totally incredible. The title doesn't look exciting but this book was highly recommended to me about 10 years ago and I finally purchased it used a few weeks ago.
The historical background and Stillwell's unique descriptions of hie experiences in China are super interesting to me.

I really like Tuchman histories -- August, Mirror, etc. The depth and character analysis as she describes the evolution of historical moments and how the outcomes and the personalities interact at each step of the way are among the best in any hitorical writng I've ever read.

This is an extremely long book which covers Chinese history and ending with Stilwell's dismissal. There is good information in this book, but it also is "very dry" and not a very interesting read. There is no doubt that the author has done tremendous research, but events described; and her analysis of situations, seemed to be simplistic to me. Gen. Stilwell seemed to have done no wrong. She describes Chiang Kai Shek as being basically corrupt and unwilling to fight the Japanese. I'm sorry but I can't accept this analysis. We have men like MacArthur, Chennault, and Wedemeyer who all felt that Chiang was the man for the job. These men aren't exactly lightweights offering their opinion.

There is no doubt that Chiang Kai Shek's idea for China differed from U.S. policy. He not only was battling the Japanese, but he was also trying to make sure the communists did not gain control in the process. Unlike the U.S. who appeased the communists at every turn and ended up with the cold war. And so there should be no surprise that Chiang and Stilwell would have conflict; especially when Gen. Stilwell wanted to bring MAO and the communists in to fight the Japanese. While there is no doubt that Gen. Stilwell was a tough hard-nosed soldier, he didn't grasp the political implications of having communists joining the Kuomintang. Chiang wanted no part of that. When Gen. Stilwell began referring to Chiang as "peanut" either Gen. Marshall, Stimson, or FDR should have replaced him. When you lose respect for your fellow man in command, there needs to be arbitration to resolve the conflict. I'm not questioning Gen. Stilwell's soldierly qualities, because there is no doubt about his fighting ability. But the situation in China required more than just fighting.

Overall, this is a thorough book that offers a different look from Gen. Stilwell's eyes, but in my opinion the book does not offer a true perspective of this period.

Please see review of Practicing History -- ditto!
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Why is there a minimum # words for the review? Did no one ever tell you that brevity is a sign of genius?

Tuchman was the daughter of the banker Maurice Wertheim. She was a first cousin of New York district attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, a niece of Henry Morgenthau, Jr. and granddaughter of Henry Morgenthau Sr., Woodrow Wilson's Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.

Morgenthau was asked about the then US$100 million China had purchased from the USA with their exports. His answer was he did not have a clue. Neither the gold nor the US$100 million was ever found nor send to China.

From 1934 to 1935, she worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Pacific Relations in New York and Tokyo. The Pacific Institute was investigated by the FBI and found to be a Soviet spy organisation. She also worked as a journalist before turning to writing books. When John Loomis Sherman left as head of a Communist spy ring in Tokyo (second to that of Richard Sorge), Tuchman took over Sherman's cover (less espionage activities) as head of Tokyo offices for the American Feature Writers Syndicate (established in New York City by Sherman, literary agent Maxim Lieber, and fellow Soviet Underground spy Whittaker Chambers).[4]

According to the Saturday Review, she was the most overrated person in American Arts and letters. Over the years, she made the unhappy transition from writing history as a moral lesson to writing moral lesson as history.

This about sums up the credibility of Tuchman's book, and the totally 'unbiased' opinion of hers.
For any serious student of US policy, especially in China, it gives invaluable insight into the misinformation being propagated by those who know better.

This book very elegantly and faithfully documented the Stilwell's point of view of what happened during this part of history, but it is very one-sided.

First of all, the KMT commanders were not mostly corrupt and incapable like Tuchman had described in this book. A direct quote from TIME artile titled "The Army Nodbody Knows" in the June 16, 1941 issue:
"...Four years of war have hurt China a lot, but have also taught China a lot. The most spectacular discovery, for a nation in which military leadership has classically been an affair of coin and cunning rather than martial skill, has been that China could turn out first-class officer talent.

There is no younger officer class in the world than that of the Generalissimo's crack divisions. Generalissimo Chiang is 53, Chen Cheng is 41, Chen's Field Chief of Staff is 34. It would be hard to find a divisional or regimental commander in those divisions over 40. Regimental colonels are sometimes in their 20s.

These baby officers are tough babies. They are trim as well-kept guns, big fellows, by Chinese standards, hearty and jolly in rest and brutally energetic in action. They lead in person. With their divisions they clamber up mountainsides which would put most corpulent U.S. colonels hors de combat. In nearly four years of fighting, the young officers have mastered the arts of the field--silent de ployment, timely retreat, sudden concentration, plausible ambuscade, dependable supply of vegetable camouflage..."

But as this book has gone out of its way to emphasize, it is true that Chiang's administration towards the end of the second Sino-Japanese war was becoming weak and corrupt, which eventually led to his lost of mainland China to the Communist. However, this fact needs to be put into context as well. China fought alone for 4 years against a vastly more superior enemy. Therefore many of the best Nationalist Chinese generals were KIA or incapacitated early in the war of resistance against Japan. There were 73 KMT generals KIA during WWII (plus 1 Chinese Communist general), more than any other country Allied or Axis. It is reasonable to assume that many of the KMT military commanders that managed to survive and rise in ranks to the end were more interested in self preservation and personal gain, rather than defeating the emeny. Chiang knew this all too well but could do very little to alleviate this problem, all he could do was execute one or two of them from time to time to warn others not to go too far. So Tuchman's analogy comparing KMT to AVRN is not only inappropriate, but also failed to take into account the context of China fighting a 8-year long war with marginal industrial capacity and grossly inadeqate military supplies. It is a miracle that Chiang did not surrender and broker some kind of peace agreement with the Japanese.

Finally, this book has indirectly proved that Stilwell spent (and wasted) way too much time and energy accusing the KMT leadership and fighting Chiang and Chennault, instead of accepting the tremedous shortcomings of his Chinese Ally and try to work out a less than perfect solution to fight the Japanese. His despise and hatred toward Chiang got to a point when Roosevelt gave Chiang an ultimatum to hand over command of all Chinese armed forces to Stilwell (with explicit instruction to keep this confidential), he rushed to have the letter read out loud in front of all the Chinese and American generals attending a meeting, for the sole purpose of embarrass and discredit Chiang in public. This event led directly to his recall as Chiang replied to Roosevelt that the KMT would rather fight alone than cave in to this ultimatum.

Tuchman is generous in her estimate of Stilwell's abilities, and she unfairly discounts the ability of Wedemeyer, who succeeded Stilwell. She also falls into the camp of the liberal, comsymp school of Chinese history. Indispensible to an understanding of this period is John J. McLaughlin's magnificent biography: General Albert C. Wedemeyer America's Unsung Strategist in World War II. Wedemeyer and Chennault were not fooled by the State Department phonies, and they didn't fall in love with Zhou En Lai like Marshall. Try it.