Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950 [Paperback]

Odd Westad (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 21, 2003 | ISBN-10: 080474484X | ISBN-13: 978-0804744843 | Edition: 1

The Chinese Civil War was one of the key conflicts of the twentieth century. The Communist victory determined Chinese history for several generations, and defined international relations in East Asia during the Cold War and after. Despite its importance and scope—its battles were the largest military engagements since World War II—until now remarkably little has been known about the war, and even less about its effects on the societies that suffered through it. This major new history of the Chinese Civil War attempts to answer two central questions: Why was the war fought? What were the immediate and the lasting results of the Communists’ victory?

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“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

“This remarkable survey of a crucial period of Chinese history deserves to be widely read.”—Choice

“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

“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

“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

From the Inside Flap

The Chinese Civil War was one of the key conflicts of the twentieth century. The Communist victory determined Chinese history for several generations, and defined international relations in East Asia during the Cold War and after. Despite its importance and scope—its battles were the largest military engagements since World War II—until now remarkably little has been known about the war, and even less about its effects on the societies that suffered through it. This major new history of the Chinese Civil War attempts to answer two central questions: Why was the war fought? What were the immediate and the lasting results of the Communists’ victory?
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.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1 edition (March 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080474484X
• ISBN-13: 978-0804744843
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #681,975 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good primer but needs much more detail, June 19, 2003

By 

Truth be Told "Maritime Law" (New York, NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950 (Paperback)

Prof. Westad's book provides the reader with a solid overview of the tumultuous events that engulfed China in the wake of WWII and led to China becoming the world's most populous Communist country. Prof. Westad has an engaging writing style that keeps the reader's interest, unlike many of the works written by academics. He does a good job at introducing the reader to the salient political and military events that led to the eventual defeat of the Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalist Party) and does a good job at giving those new to the subject matter the necessary background to expand their studies. Unfortunately, the work lacks in several respects. First, the the book's maps are too few and provide little of the necessary detail for one to truly understand why the principal actors made the military decisions they did. Bluntly put, the maps should have included more topographical detail and there should have been more maps covering areas of fighting in smaller increments of time to permit one to truly follow the course of military events. Furthermore, in his introduction Prof. Westad states "the main emphasis (of the book) is on the political and military history of the war..." As a former Marine combat officer who later served as a diplomat in China, I found the book lacked in both respects. There was a good deal of coverage regarding the issues of CCP debate regarding its land reform policies and debates about those policies within the party. However, the book fails to provide as much information on what the KMT leadership's thoughts about this and other important socio-economic issues. In addition, there was only superficial discussion of the military forces, organization, weaponry, and almost no real attempt to provide a detailed chronology of the war's events, at the strategic, operational or tactical level. In spite of these criticisms, I strongly recommend the book at a good starting point for those who have little or no knowledge of what happened in China during these years as there are few works available in English that deal with the subject well.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Title is misleading, June 9, 2008

By 

Edward Hou (New York, NY, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950 (Paperback)

I was slightly disappointed after reading this book. The title gives an impression of military strategy on the battlefield level. This book offered very little of that. Most concepts, strategies, and thoughts were from the thirty thousand feet level. I was hoping for a book which outlined campaigns with battlefield maps, and greater descriptions of the eb and flow of the combat. Most battles were described in a paragraph or a two. That was very disappointing. The book did give good background information on why things happened, and the history of the conflict. But with a title of "Decisive Encounters" I was expecting more "decisive encounters".

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good but partisan summary, August 10, 2007

By 

R. L. Huff "An old reader" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950 (Paperback)

Professor Westad offers here a concise and well-written overciew of the Chinese civil war and its international ramifications. While he is an excellent cold war scholar and I *do* recommend the book, I do so with certain reservations.

He begins by blaming Stalin for "inadvertantly" beginning the Chinese civil war via Soviet troop withdrawals from Manchuria. This analysis reflects the still-dominant view among Western academics to reflexively blame the USSR and Stalin for the cold war in general, although Professor Westad adds the liberal adverb caveat of "inadvertant." There is no analysis of what the Soviet alternative could have been: to remain in occupation of Manchuria? And then, of course, Stalin would now be blamed for "advertantly" causing the Chinese civil war by staying, and providing sanctuatry for the CCP to grow.

Similarly, Professor Westad is inclined to give Chiang Kai-Shek ("Jiang" - sorry, I just *can't* get used to Pin-Yin!) the benefit of the doubt. Professor Westad is of the opinion that Chiang was "deeply concerned" about the corruption of his Kuomintang regime, and "took steps" to correct it; but as Professor Westad is surely aware, these could be little more than rhetorical scoldings of middle and lower level cadres. The true source of the KMT's rot was at the top. Any serious anti-corruption drive would have threatened the corporate monoplies of the Soong family, which had been the backbone of Chiang's rise to power, and of the "Green Gang," a mafia brotherhood of which Chiang had long been a member. Ralph Thaxton's book, "Salt of the Earth," shows how peasant cottage industry was in basic opposition to the central monopolizing policies of the KMT and its confiscatory tax system for the favored few. Thus a mere "anti-corruption drive" could not have removed deep-seated peasant opposition going back some 20 years, and reinforced by the KMT's postwar carpetbaggery.

Also, Professor Westad brushes aside the CCP claim that it "bore the brunt" of the Japanese occupation. I find this an unsupportable conclusion, based on the logic of events. Chiang did not have the resources to drive the Japanese out of China. Knowing it would be suicidal to risk his remnant regime in an all-out assault, he knew also he must accomodate their presence, however unwillingly. But there was great advantage to him in having the Japanese in China, in providing a law and order he could not and keeping the Communists in line. Proof of this was his continued reliance on the Japanese remaining after the peace, to help him consolidate "Free China." In terms of attacks on the Japanese, the CCP definitely had nothing to lose and a world to gain by pushing a confrontional anti-Japanese policy, and thus *can* be said to have born "the brunt," however limited, of anti-Japanese resistance.

But in spite of my criticisms, I do recommend the book as a concise and necessary overview of a time and place that remains shrouded in cold war night and fog.