Customer Reviews

Thunder Out of China

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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.

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.

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.

This is an interesting narrative of China at the end of World War II and start of civil war by TIME Magazine correspondents Annalee Jacoby (1916-2002) and Theodore H. White (1915-1986). With their sympathies focused on the long-suffering Chinese populace, the authors show the political realities of that troubled land. Readers see how the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek was beset by corruption, cruelty and incompetence. These problems contributed to disasters like famine in Henan Province, and led many to side with Mao's Communists. The authors also relate such events as the sacking of General Joe Stillwell, and the listless Nationalist opposition to the invading Japanese. By honestly reporting Nationalist incompetence and the possibility of a communist takeover (as happened in 1949), the authors soon found themselves in hot water. TIME publisher Henry Luce fired White for refusing to heed Luce's party line, and both authors were later accused of having helped "lose" China to the Reds.

Theodore White went on to a stellar career as a U.S. political writer with his superb MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT series, while Jacoby married author and media personality Clifton Fadiman. This is a worthy and realistic narrative, although not quite up the standards of most of White's later books.

I came across this book while going through a box of my grandmother's old books. What a find! As a student of Asian History, I found it fascinating and can't believe that I never read this while majoring in Asian Studies (shame on you San Diego State!). It is very well written and a true asset to anyone studying China's past and what lead up to the Coummunist revolt.

This is investigative journalism at its best, starting in 1939 with a report of the then Kuomintang capital and ending with the renewed civil war well under way in 1946, the years this book was published in the present, unchanged form. All important historical event in this time bracket are treated as they were realized by the authors based on their investigations and understanding of China - but to many questions of personal motives or details answers then couldn't be presented. The hero of the story is the Chinese peasant and the more efficient way to help him to progress into the modern world is seen with the communists. But it is not the complete history of China between 1937 and 1949 I hoped to find ....

White has for many years been noted for his observations of current political affairs. His "Making of the President..." works are well thought of by many students of American politics of the period from 1960 on. But he did not spring fully formed from obscurity. He perfected his trade in partnership with Annalee Jacoby in China from 1939 to 1946 as a reporter for Time Magazine. Henry Luce, the publisher of Time, Life, and Fortune, all major and widely circulated and influential, was a prominent member of the notorious China Lobby, composed of Americans with family and commercial ties to China.
In that period Time did not give bylines to their reporters so White did not receive public notice for his work until this book appeared. Even though Luce was a political conservative he gsve the liberal White much leeway in his reporting. White's sympathies were with the long suffering Chinese people, and it did not matter to him which of the contending factions won out so long as the people's lot was improved.
This work summarizes and preserves in a readily available form the reporting. I have found in contrast that many valuable reports of the conduct of the Mexican Revolution have never been gathered snd republished, thus the value of this work as first hand reporting and "real time" personal narrative is apparent.

Make no mistake, Teddy White was an excellent writer. His writings communicates vividly and sympathetically. He makes you see what he sees and what he feels. He also gives you a feeling of what that age was like from the eye of an American reporter. However, White was no more than a man of his profession and his times. He did not have the hindsight of history and what would come out of the triumph of Chinese communism. Therefore this work is a good source material for historical research but should not be regarded as a good book of history. The work is remarkable for what it covers, but also remarkable for what it did not cover. For example, he would use two sentence to describe the heroic defense of Hengyang, but he would spend two pages describing how pathetic the Chinese soldiers were. He even gave us the wrong name for the general who defended Hengyang. He would discuss about the corruption that took away big portions of American aid. He did not discuss how Treasury Secretary Morgenthau withheld vital aid from China, after he agreed to provide the aid. A lot of these facts he probably did not know at the time. I would suggest reading Lin Yutang's book Vigil of a Nation along with this book. It will give you a more balanced view of the complexity of the situation. I am still waiting for a good book that will provide the definitive history of this very important era.

Thunder Out of China provides a look at China as it transitioned from the Kuomintang government to communism following World War II. The book takes the reader through Theodore White's perspective (who was a journalist stationed in China at the time) on why the Kuomintang fell and the corruption that led to their fall. It is very detailed and provides a unique perspective of China that few are able to provide at that time. He looks at the peasants, the military the political leadership of both the Kuomintang and the Communists as well as the efforts of the United States State Department and Military who helped to preserve the leadership of the Kuomintang. It is a very quick read for those who want a perspective on what occurred form someone who lived it at the time. While not all encompassing it does provide a primary source for the fall of China.

Lets start with the technical stuff first. This book is very well written, covers a wide variety of angles, and is easy to read. You will come away from it with a much better understanding of the time period, but Jacoby and White inject a lot of flavor, making this an invaluable historical narrative void of dusty facts and bland language.

What really stands out in "Thunder Out of China" is its political implications. I felt it was rather non-biased, but the authors do seem to be building up to the conclusion that Nationalist China never stood a chance after the War was over. What was a shakey regime prior to the Japanese invasion is all but toppled because of the inept abilities of the Nationalists to provide for their people and fight the Japanese rather than let personal loyalties and greed dictate their actions. While the Nationalists waste away, their counterparts in Red territory only become stronger and stronger, till they reach the point that they are capable of waging war against the Nationalists, only this time, without Soviet interferance, and with broad support from the peasant population.

What you will pull away from this book is not nessisarily choosing a side to agree with, and concluding good or evil, but rather the notion in China that when it comes to ruling a country with as much ground and as many people as China has, might is right, and the prize goes to the one capable of holding it all together.