Soong Dynasty
by Sterling Seagrave
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Book Summary Information
Author: Sterling SeagraveEdition: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 1986-04-19
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 560
Publisher: Harper and Row
Book Reviews of Soong Dynasty
Book Review: The frightening story of Chiang Kai-Shek
Summary: 5 Stars
I am too young to remember the hegira of the Kuomintang, but I've heard the story in one form or another all my life. I've met people on both sides who have vastly different views of the events and personalities of the time. One thing that is clear, though, and that is that Stillwell hated Chiang, which is expained in lucid detail in Tuchman's Stillwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45. Seagrave takes the same view, namely that Chiang was a gangster who got to the top at a time when China was in chaos.
Chiang's hagiography, as touted by the Mandarins in Taiwan is an example of the amazing curative powers of propaganda. (That is why you should turn off CNN if you want to be able to think.)
This book is not just about Chiang, but about the Soong's, the family he married into. The story of Madame Chiang growing up as a young girl in Georgia, and learning to speak English with a southern accent is fascinating. The Soongs were bicultural and bilingual. They were also fantastically wealthy, and that combination helped them find their way to the top in the USA. Mrs. Chiang had unprecedented access to FDR during the time that the US was helping the Chinese fight Japan. The Chiangs used that access to extort huge sums of money from the Americans and they used it to enrich themselves while letting Mao and Cho carry the war.
Madame Chiang's sister was married to Dr. Sun Yat Sen, about whom Seagrave has little good to say, but who has been considered the father of the republican revolution in China. Whether he was or not is a question that Seagrave discusses at length in the book.
Another great book about Chinese history from a man who has spent much of his life in Asia. A great read.
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