STILWELL AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN

Rating:
Summary: In which we see Chiang Kai Shek. . .
Review: Barbara Tuchman examines the history of Sino-American relations in the 20th Century through the life of the highly gifted soldier, Joseph Stilwell. Through his Army career, we see him intertwined with China and her struggles through the first five decades of this century. We follow Stilwell as he meets an exceptional number of Chinese leaders of all political persuasions and developes an intimate knowledge of China. Flown to China after the start of World War II, General Stilwell is faced with a crumbling tactical and strategic situation. He takes charge of the troops around him and leads them out of Burma, where they had ended up, into India. He refused air evacuation and walked out with his men and stragglers that he met along the way. It was a massive display of leadership skills and dedication to his craft as a soldier. General Stilwell was not an easy man to work for or with, as Tuchman describes in several situations. His lack of tact and at times patience might be seen as handicaps; while the leaders of Nationalist China schemed to have him removed or at least become more pliable, he was loved by his combat soldiers, American and Chinese alike. He sacrificed himself in the pursuit of an elusive and probably impossible goal, full Sino-American combat operations. World War II ended in September 1945. In October 1946, General Stilwell was dead. His final award in a long and distinguished career was not another medal of which he had many, but the Combat Infantryman's Badge; worn by all American soldiers who have seen combat service since 1941. It is the badge of a unique brotherhood and one that I am glad to see General Stilwell was allowed to join as this distinction is not given to senior officers. This is a tremendously valuable book. As America enters into new relations with China, it might be time for this book to be re-released. It can't hurt.

Rating:
Summary: The man who tried and failed to save China
Review: This book's triumph begins with a brilliant idea: Barbara Tuchman's decision to combine a biography of Gen. "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell with a history of China's failed republican revolution. To an amazing degree, Stilwell showed up as history was happening in China after the collapse of Qing Dynasty in 1911. During the Second World War, he played a leading - and doomed - role in United States' relationship with the incompetent, corrupt regime of Chiang Kai-shek. As a result, Stilwell is a perfect vehicle through which to explore the United States' tragic relationship with China for most of the last century. Stilwell is fascinating - tough, smart, curious about the world around him, disdainful of pretense, entirely lacking in tact and patience. In some ways, he was the perfect man to try to coax Chiang into actually fighting the Japanese who were devouring China in the '30s and '40s: Stilwell spoke fluent Chinese, knew Chinese culture, admired Chinese people, had faith in the beleaguered Chinese soldier's ability to fight - and was a brilliant battlefield tactician. In other ways, he was precisely the wrong man for the job: He lacked the temperament to hide the contempt he felt for the Generalissimo and the corrupt sycophants around him. As a result, Stilwell was ineffective in his dealings with Chiang. Then again, perhaps no one could have persuaded Chiang, who emerges here as equal parts stupid and arrogant (with an equally sickening wife), to defend his country instead of his own narrow interests. Tuchman strikes a nice balance between sweeping themes and intriguing, even funny details. True, I sometimes got lost in the narrative. I couldn't always remember the characters, and I got confused on military strategy - so much so that I couldn't evaluate the wisdom of Stilwell's plan for an aggressive ground offensive to retake Burma from the Japanese and weigh it against a rival plan from the British. At least one of its themes - the way a muzzled media presented a wildly misleading impression of Chiang's regime to the U.S. public - struck this reader as particularly timely.

Rating:
Summary: great book !!
Review: This is not just a book but a comprehensive education for anyone concerned with the love-hate relationship between American and China. Too bad it came out at such a late date. To me, both and Korean and Vietnam wars might have been avoided had it come out in the late 1940s or early 1950s

Rating:
Summary: great book !!
Review: This is not just a book but a comprehensive education for anyone concerned with the love-hate relationship between American and China. Too bad it came out at such a late date. To me, both and Korean and Vietnam wars might have been avoided had it come out in the late 1940s or early 1950s

Rating:
Summary: Personality and History: The relationship between Chiang Kai
Review: Who was Joseph Stilwell? What part did he play in the unfolding of China�s troubled century? It has been said that "men make a lot of history, and history makes a lot of men." To what extent was Stilwell "made" by the history he lived through? And how might the recent history of China have been different if another were in his position? How did the relationship between Stilwell and Chiang Kai-Shek (Jiang Jieshi) affect their joint ability to save China from the Japanese? To what extent was the conflict between them made irrelevant by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Chiang Kai-Shek always said that the Japanese were a disease of the skin, but the Communists were a disease of the heart. Was he correct to hold back from fighting the Japanese so that he could spare his reserves for the inevitable conflict with the Communists? Might he have been more effective on both fronts if he had been more aggressive against the Japanese? And how would present day China be different if the Gomingdang rather than the Communist Party had been running China for past 50 years? What implications does this story have for the "Taiwan question?"

Nothing stands out more in my study of 20th Century China, than the frustration of so many situations where there were simply no good choices. Of course, I am not Chinese, so I suppose I am able, because of that, to view the period with some measure of detachment. But I was born in Tokyo, and grew up in the north of Japan, so, while I am always viewed as a foreigner in Asia, I am, in fact, a child of Asia, and keenly interested in what factors contributed to the painful history China has lived since the revolution of 1911.

One of the most interesting comparisons in this book is between Joseph Stilwell, and Claire Chennault. Barbara Tuchman clearly favors Stilwell, to the point where I would say that if this book were your only source of information about Chennault, and who he was, you probably would not have a very high opinion of him. But even Tuchman must admit that Claire Chennault had much better rapport with Chiang Kai-Shek than Stilwell.

Let me try to phrase the matter in very basic terms: Joseph Stilwell was a brilliant general who�s relational skills, and more importantly his relationship sense was seriously wanting. Throughout the book, I am struck, not by a deficiency of intelligence, or determination, or persistence, but by a lack of basic humanity. This deficiency hangs over Stilwell like a cloud, polluting his relationships with those with whom it was most important for him to get along.

For starters, he was one of the ungodliest officers in the history of the U.S. Army. To his daughter, he wrote about the "criminal instincts I picked up by being forced to go to Church and Sunday School, and seeing how little real good religion does anybody, I advise passing them all up and using common sense instead." This cynical godlessness expressed itself in many ways. Stilwell was generally contemptuous and disrespectful toward those with whom he disagreed (mostly Chiang Kai-Shek). This was a source of irritation to FDR, who felt that Chiang Kai-Shek was a head of state, and ought to be accorded the level of respect due one in that position. Stilwell did not see it that way. He constantly referred to Chiang in his diary as "Peanut," or "Hickory Head." Several times he referred to FDR himself as "Rubber Legs." The Japanese he called "buck-toothed bastards."

Both Churchill and MacArthur possessed a spiritual dimension that was completely foreign to Stilwell. Churchill used to say, "In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity; in peace, goodwill. Stilwell probably should be given credit for understanding the first point, and perhaps the second in some measure. But for the rest of it, he was clueless. No, I mean really, completely clueless. When MacArthur ruled Japan as a virtual dictator after World War II, he issued a request for 10,000 missionaries. He also contacted the Gideons and requested as many bibles as they could supply. Whatever one may say about MacArthur�s personal spiritual life, he did understand that the essential problem of post-war Japan was a spiritual crisis. Stilwell had no such insight. Following a tour of the gutted and burned out districts of Yokohama after World War II, he said, "We gloated over the destruction and came in feeling fine."

At one point, after he had been removed from China, he allowed himself to believe that he would be chosen over MacArthur for command of forces in the Pacific. By God�s mercy, he was not chosen, and the Japanese people experienced the big-heartedness of MacArthur.

This book is old. It came out in 1971. In spite of that, this is a very useful book. Barbara Tuchman was a war correspondent who personally witnessed much of the Sino-Japanese war during the 30s. She is very thorough, detailed and organized. She also possesses a level of objectivity which is refreshing in this day and age when so much written history is editorial in nature.

I have been pretty hard on Stilwell. Perhaps I have been so turned off by his acerbic nature that I have tended not to appreciate his brilliance as an officer. Marshall, who was always Stilwell�s strongest supporter, said that Stilwell was "his own worst enemy." The point, here, I guess, is that many good qualities can be obscured by a little bit of folly. Nonetheless, this, as I said, is a very useful book. It isn�t all about Stilwell. It is about a very important point in China�s history, and the way personality affected policy. Understanding the American experience in China is critical to comprehending how events developed toward the culmination of the conflict, in 1949.

Rating:
Summary: Personality and History: The relationship between Chiang Kai
Review: Who was Joseph Stilwell? What part did he play in the unfolding of China's troubled century? It has been said that "men make a lot of history, and history makes a lot of men." To what extent was Stilwell "made" by the history he lived through? And how might the recent history of China have been different if another were in his position? How did the relationship between Stilwell and Chiang Kai-Shek (Jiang Jieshi) affect their joint ability to save China from the Japanese? To what extent was the conflict between them made irrelevant by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Chiang Kai-Shek always said that the Japanese were a disease of the skin, but the Communists were a disease of the heart. Was he correct to hold back from fighting the Japanese so that he could spare his reserves for the inevitable conflict with the Communists? Might he have been more effective on both fronts if he had been more aggressive against the Japanese? And how would present day China be different if the Gomingdang rather than the Communist Party had been running China for past 50 years? What implications does this story have for the "Taiwan question?"

Nothing stands out more in my study of 20th Century China, than the frustration of so many situations where there were simply no good choices. Of course, I am not Chinese, so I suppose I am able, because of that, to view the period with some measure of detachment. But I was born in Tokyo, and grew up in the north of Japan, so, while I am always viewed as a foreigner in Asia, I am, in fact, a child of Asia, and keenly interested in what factors contributed to the painful history China has lived since the revolution of 1911.

One of the most interesting comparisons in this book is between Joseph Stilwell, and Claire Chennault. Barbara Tuchman clearly favors Stilwell, to the point where I would say that if this book were your only source of information about Chennault, and who he was, you probably would not have a very high opinion of him. But even Tuchman must admit that Claire Chennault had much better rapport with Chiang Kai-Shek than Stilwell.

Let me try to phrase the matter in very basic terms: Joseph Stilwell was a brilliant general who's relational skills, and more importantly his relationship sense was seriously wanting. Throughout the book, I am struck, not by a deficiency of intelligence, or determination, or persistence, but by a lack of basic humanity. This deficiency hangs over Stilwell like a cloud, polluting his relationships with those with whom it was most important for him to get along.

For starters, he was one of the ungodliest officers in the history of the U.S. Army. To his daughter, he wrote about the "criminal instincts I picked up by being forced to go to Church and Sunday School, and seeing how little real good religion does anybody, I advise passing them all up and using common sense instead." This cynical godlessness expressed itself in many ways. Stilwell was generally contemptuous and disrespectful toward those with whom he disagreed (mostly Chiang Kai-Shek). This was a source of irritation to FDR, who felt that Chiang Kai-Shek was a head of state, and ought to be accorded the level of respect due one in that position. Stilwell did not see it that way. He constantly referred to Chiang in his diary as "Peanut," or "Hickory Head." Several times he referred to FDR himself as "Rubber Legs." The Japanese he called "buck-toothed bastards."

Both Churchill and MacArthur possessed a spiritual dimension that was completely foreign to Stilwell. Churchill used to say, "In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity; in peace, goodwill. Stilwell probably should be given credit for understanding the first point, and perhaps the second in some measure. But for the rest of it, he was clueless. No, I mean really, completely clueless. When MacArthur ruled Japan as a virtual dictator after World War II, he issued a request for 10,000 missionaries. He also contacted the Gideons and requested as many bibles as they could supply. Whatever one may say about MacArthur's personal spiritual life, he did understand that the essential problem of post-war Japan was a spiritual crisis. Stilwell had no such insight. Following a tour of the gutted and burned out districts of Yokohama after World War II, he said, "We gloated over the destruction and came in feeling fine."

At one point, after he had been removed from China, he allowed himself to believe that he would be chosen over MacArthur for command of forces in the Pacific. By God's mercy, he was not chosen, and the Japanese people experienced the big-heartedness of MacArthur.

This book is old. It came out in 1971. In spite of that, this is a very useful book. Barbara Tuchman was a war correspondent who personally witnessed much of the Sino-Japanese war during the 30s. She is very thorough, detailed and organized. She also possesses a level of objectivity which is refreshing in this day and age when so much written history is editorial in nature.

I have been pretty hard on Stilwell. Perhaps I have been so turned off by his acerbic nature that I have tended not to appreciate his brilliance as an officer. Marshall, who was always Stilwell's strongest supporter, said that Stilwell was "his own worst enemy." The point, here, I guess, is that many good qualities can be obscured by a little bit of folly. Nonetheless, this, as I said, is a very useful book. It isn't all about Stilwell. It is about a very important point in China's history, and the way personality affected policy. Understanding the American experience in China is critical to comprehending how events developed toward the culmination of the conflict, in 1949.