Soong Dynasty [Paperback]

Sterling Seagrave (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 19, 1986

An inside account of the Soong family, whose wealth and power have dominated China and U.S.-Asia policy in the 20th century.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Fast-paced and jammed with racy details." -- -- New York Times Book Review

Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; First edition (March 19, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060913185
• ISBN-13: 978-0060913182
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #690,290 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sterling Seagrave (born 1937) is the author of eleven non-fiction histories and biographies, many co-authored with his wife, Peggy Seagrave. He grew up in Asia, in the remote Golden Triangle opium country on the Burma-China border, when Burma was still part of British India. He is in the 5th generation of American medical missionaries and teachers who came to Burma in 1832. He was in Burma when it was invaded by Japan in 1942, but with other family members were aboard the last refugee ship to India. His father, bestselling author of Burma Surgeon and Burma Surgeon Returns, was General Stilwell's chief medical officer in the CBI Theater. In 1947-8 when Britain gave Burma its independence, multiple civil wars broke out that continue today, and led to a military dictatorship still in power now. He was educated at a boarding school in India, then later in North and South America. In 1958, he dropped out of college and went to Cuba, age 21, as a stringer for the Chicago Daily News, instead helping Fidelistas in Pinar del Rio move ammunition and medicines brought by smuggling boats from the Florida Everglades. Since age 18, he has been a journalist at various newspapers including four years at The Washington Post. In 1965 he resigned to freelance throughout Asia for magazines including TIME, LIFE, Newsweek, Esquire, GEO, Atlantic, and Smithsonian. In 1979, he began writing investigative books, about the secret use of chemical and biological weapons, followed by a series of books on the powerful dynastic families of Asia, revealing their true histories disguised by propaganda and hagiographies. Death threats from Taiwan followed publication of The Soong Dynasty, a nationwide bestseller and top choice of the Book of the Month Club. The film option was purchased by George Roy Hill and Paul Newman. Next came books about Japan's looting of Asia in WW2, and how the treasure "vanished" when it was secretly recovered by the CIA to bribe foreign dictators and oligarchs. More death threats caused him to move to Europe in 1985 with Peggy Seagrave. They are now French citizens, writing their twelfth book. Many have been bestsellers in multiple languages, including Mongol. In France Seagrave has published three French editions in Paris, and has had long interviews in Paris Match, Nouvel Observateur, and Valeurs Actuel. They lived on a sailboat for ten years, then moved ashore to restore a 13th C stone wine-cave first built by the Knights Templar. It is surrounded by vineyards, with fine views of the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean. They have spent 17 years restoring it, while continuing to research and write books.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A little skewed but pretty sound, December 6, 2005

By 

P. M Simon "El Simon Asombroso" (New Mexico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Soong Dynasty (Paperback)

Sterling Seagrave, a decent China scholar, has produced a punchy history of the Soong family and its marriages to the rich and powerful of republican China. This includes Chiang Kai Shek (Jiang Jie Shi, actually, aka CKS) and Sun Yat Sen.

The work is generally accurate about the dynasty's incredible greed, the tales of the three sisters including Dragon Lady Madame Chiang. The mainland Chinese still like to sum them up with the bon mot, "there were three sisters; one loved power, one loved money, and one loved China." This volume explains why.

The book is a splendid introduction to modern Taiwan and why it is as it is, why the Chinese Republic failed, and how drug dealing and corruption brought it down. It is a wonderful introduction to Tuchmann's classic "Stilwell and the American Experience in China."

The book is perhaps too hard on old CKS who had great strengths as an organizer and mollifier, and did make some attempts at land and fiscal reform. But it is broadly accurate and is a must read for any scholar of modern China.

The Soong Dynasty is why the mainland and Taiwan are what they are today!

reviewer note: I have lived in both places and speak excellent Mandarin.

56 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Seagrave's best effort, December 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Soong Dynasty (Paperback)

Having read Seagrave's other works I have to say this is easily the best effort. People who wonder why Mao Tse Tung is still revered amongst many Chinese people should read this book.

The alternative to Mao was the 'Generalissimo' Chiang Kai Shek. Seagrave does a good job of underlining the fact that almost anyone would have been preferable to Chiang. He also clearly shows that Mao was the only leader capable of mobilising and motivating the peasants into an army capable of defeating the Japanese. It truly is a shame how Mao allowed absolute power to subsequently corrupt him into the vile creature he was to become. Chiang's long history of needless brutal murder and his seedy connections with the Shanghai Triads is also quite well covered.

What this book is really about though is the remarkable influence 3 sisters had on the history of the sleeping giant which was China. The book also presents the striking contrast between the motivations of each sister. One lusting for power, the other lusting for money and the third who was a true chinese patriot.

One does develop a strong connection with the third sister's strength of character. It's difficult to imagine anyone being able to maintain such honest, good intentions when surrounded by such ugly greed. While Chinese people were being slaughtered by the invading hordes of Japanese the 'Generalissimo'& Co. were busy lining their pockets with money which they solicited from the US. Many US citzens would be interested to know just how much US money for the war effort was funelled via TV Soong into various investments throughout the world.

This is one of many books which depict the tragic story of China for much of the twentieth century. By concentrating on the lives of these sisters Seagrave makes the history of China come alive. A super read, very difficult to put down and very difficult to forget.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good read, February 5, 2004

By 

Arturo Araya "ccellist" (Cincinnati, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Soong Dynasty (Paperback)

First of all, in response to several negative comments about the author, there is no such thing as "objective history" or "an objective historical account". This is why we have Marxist historians, Feminist historians, Revisionist historians, and so on endlessly. All historical analysis is invariably subjective one way or another depending on the historical lens we happen to be using to analyze the given facts and events. This is how we find historical patterns, this is how a thesis on a subject develops. Without the subjectivity inherent in historical retellings there would be no such thing as Historiography.

What you *can* have is a well-researched and well-documented narrative where the facts and events are presented in such a way that your particular (dare I say it) bias, thesis, or main idea is at least plausible, and I believe this book has done that.

I will agree with most that the way in which Mr. Seagrave documents his books is academically annoying if not irresponsible, given that there are no references to his endnotes in the text, which makes following up on his references tricky. There are also several places where I would have liked to have seen a source cited. Still, these sections can easily be ignored or dismissed as the authors opinion and/or speculation with just a little bit of effort and mental discipline on the readers part. They do not detract from the overall value of the book as an informative view into the environment surrounding the political crises following the collapse of the Manchu Qing Dynasty to the founding of the People's Republic.

Perhaps, then, as a source this book leaves something to be desired, but as a narrative I believe it fills in some important gaps relating to Sino-US relations at the time of the Revolution. Also, it does a good job of shedding light into just how clueless American policy-makers were regarding Chinese politics and culture, and how vulnerable they were to being manipulated by people like Henry Luce from Time, T.V. Soong and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. Finally, it helps show the disastrous consequences of drafting policy without a clear understanding of the culture in question, a message that is as relevant today as it was then, perhaps more so. The book is well-written, the endnotes section is there and is quite extensive, as is the Works Cited section.