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Understand before you read this book that the author is an unabashed fan of Communist movement in China--all good things come from the Red Army and all bad things come from the KMT and Chiang Kai-shek. I was reading this book to get a closer look at the men who would lead China in years to come, so Snow's cheerleading was only a minor distraction. The book was published in the late 1930s, long before the war was won. I found it very interesting to read about Peng Dehuai's background and his stature in the Red Army knowing the fate that would meet him years later during the Great Leap Forward.
He sets the stage nicely with the conditions that made successful revolution and civil war possible. He does a pretty good job in describing the main players, although I would have liked much more on Zhou Enlai.
In some passages, the book moves along nicely, especially around the Long March. In other sections, he can get a little bogged down in details that don't seem to add up to much.
Also note that the book uses the Yale system of transliteration, not Pinyin. "Zhu De" will appear as "Chu Teh", for instance.
I learned quite a few things, and got a new perspective on one of the most important events in the 20th Century -- the establishment of the People's Republic of China.