Customer Reviews

Two Kinds of Time

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China has been a vault of culture for millennia, yet some of its history is tremendously disheartening. "Two Kinds of Time" is a large memoir from Graham Peck about his time spent in China during one of its darkest times, with a focus on the era of World War II, where a Civil War was halted to resist the invasion of the Imperialistic Japanese. Serving the US army at the time, "Two Kinds of Time" is an extensive chronicle, a highly recommended snapshot of this period.

Reading this book deepens our understanding of what was really happening in China during the Japanese/Kuomintang era. Graham Peck was there, and he traveled around and got a first-hand look at many viewpoints and how the events that were taking place were affecting the people and steering the country in various directions. His keen insight and his commentary on what he saw and experienced are invaluable to anyone who wants to comprehend the China of today (and, for that matter, the world of today). This is the most thorough and insightful book I have ever seen about this subject, and I couldn't help thinking as I read it that human history is, in many ways, a script that has been played over and over in various settings and times. It's a tired old story of suffering, struggle, ruthless power and greed, and destructive wars. I believe the only way we will we learn the lessons from the past that we need in order to progress is to understand on a deep level what drives human society, and I believe Two Kinds of Time is a book that can help us toward that path. I'm thankful that there was such an intelligent pair of eyes recording all of this, and I hope this book will be widely read.