China 1949

Here for this. I loved this. This time era is the point of contention for history itself and for arguments against the implementation of programs that are similar to the ones you see take place in this book. I thought this book really took you behind the scenes and broke things done in such a way that really shed light on this time.

This excellent book focuses on a single year of the twentieth-century - the year in which the Communist Party of China overran the country south of the Yangtze and chased Chiang Kai-shek out (to Taiwan). They installed new city governors, implemented land reform and sought to be a credible force for reform. They wriggled free of Stalin’s control and set off on their own journey. Hutchings takes a chronological approach as we move through the year, falling the invading army on their way south. The author fills in necessary back-story, scene-setting, and basic analysis as we go along.

Hutchings has described and explained the key events in a book that is a masterpiece of expository writing. There is a lot of detail about culture, the regional provinces, the factional in-fighting and the structure of governance for the Nationalists and the Communists, but it never feels dense or confusing (and I say this as a relative newcomer to this story). The book charts, with impressive clarity and narrative flow, the key episodes, such as the capture of Beijing (which he spells as Beiping), the crossing of the Yangtze River, the transfer of financial and cultural resources to Taiwan, and the capture of Shanghai. He mixes in a range of short individual stories, and charts the impacts on ‘offshore China’: Hong Kong and Taiwan. From a position of relative ignorance, I now feel I have a fairly solid handle on these momentous events.

There is a simple timeline at the start, some basic maps and some striking photographs t throughout. Not to sound like a stuck record but I really can’t remember reading a book that was so lucidly written. I think anyone with an interest, however casual, in recent Chinese history will find plenty to admire in this superb book.

In China 1949 Year of Revolution, Graham Hutchings makes a convincing argument that 1949 was the defining year of the Chinese Revolution detailing the collapse of the Nationalist government and the takeover by the Communists.

Hutchings does a really good job of looking at the conflict from all sides: the grand historical figures Chiang Kai-shek, Mao. The foreign powers: The United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and even ordinary people teachers, missionaries, students, and mothers. This gives the story more of a collective feel as to what it was like to live and move within China as the country crumbled.

If I can offer a criticism it would be that by choosing the year 1949, the author has to go through a lot of history just to prepare the ground for the story of 1949. I felt like it took a good 20-30% of the book just to set the stage for the story that Hutchings wants to tell. On one hand, it is good to not assume that everyone who reads your book knows the complex history of the Chinese civil war, but the story gets lost in some ways.

It’s a solidly written story told from different directions that may have shared just a touch too much history.