Thunder Out of China [Paperback]

Theodore H. White (Author), Annalee Jacoby (Author)

Book Description

Series: Da Capo Paperback | Publication Date: August 22, 1980

From the first outbreak of hostilities in northern China in 1937 to the Japanese surrender aboard the U.S.S.Missouri in 1945, this book re-creates the decade of upheaval when China was caught in the grip of revolution and war and torn from its feudal past. The authors Time-Life correspondents during the war years, report firsthand on the rise and fall of the Kuomintang nationalist government and its leader, Chiang Kaishek, who ironically misunderstood his own people as much as the Japanese. At the same time, we see how the Communists won popular support both with more extensive social reforms and with their unrelenting war against Japan. White and Jacoby also shed new light on the actions of "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell (the only American who assessed the Chinese situation accurately) and the diplomacy of Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley, also providing a classic account of the Chinese peasant and his revolution which has since proved to be the recurrent pattern of events in the developing Third World.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Theodore H. White is the author of The Making of the President books, as well as America in Search of Itself.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (August 22, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306801280
• ISBN-13: 978-0306801280
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #512,482 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An accurate, balanced exploration of wartime China, July 11, 2001

By 

Elisabeth W. Movius (Shanghai China) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thunder Out of China (Paperback)

White and Jacoby, both correspondants for Time Magazine during WW2 and its aftermath, provide an insider's portrayal of China's convoluted mechanisms of governence. While other contemporary accounts are mostly small in their scope, and unapologetically biased towards either the Communists or the Nationalists, Thunder Out of China is brutally fair, sympathetic to the Nationalists while exposing their corruption, and detailing the incompentence of the American intervention which resulted in a resumption of the disasterous civil war 1945-1949. The book covers such disasters as the Hunan famine, the farce of Chinese "resistance" to the Japanese invaders, the recalcitrant corruption and conservatism of the Nationalist leaders, and the sacking of Stillwell.

Snow's Red Star Over China may be more readable, but it's chatty, personal, pro-Red, and semi-fictionalized account is much less revealing historically than Thunder Out of China. Time was unapologetically, even fanatically, supportive of the Chiang Kai-shek regime, and the magazine's propaganda in the US explains much of America's distastrous intervention (read China Hands for more on this). White and Jacoby used this book to expose much of what their employer wouldn't let them say, and it remains one of the best accounts written of wartime China.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Real China, January 10, 2001

By 

Michael Harwood (Ingersoll, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thunder Out of China (Paperback)

This book, along with "Wild Swans", is a must read for anyone who would understand the history of China and why things are the way they are. It is well written and fast paced. The corruption of Chiang Kai-shek before Mao took over was enlightening. The media gives such a biased (pro-American) and simplistic (black and white) view of events in China. This book will take you behind the scenes.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book with a WWII contemporary viewpoint, May 10, 2004

By 

Jack Purcell (Placitas, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thunder Out of China (Paperback)

I first encountered Thunder Out of China in the late 1960s after Lin Yutang caused me to have a yearning to know more about the China of the early 20th Century. Theodore White was one of my early reads. Because of the rabid anti-communism of the times I found myself wondering how White managed to keep himself out of the clutches of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, writing such things. This book was responsible for the historical amoeba of WWII gradually spreading through my life for several years.

Read it. This is a side of WWII, Mao, Chang, Vinegar Joe Stillwell from personal acquaintance and observation, you won't get anywhere else.