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Sto caricando le informazioni... The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia (edizione 2015)di James Bradley (Autore)
Informazioni sull'operaThe China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia di James Bradley
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. I think the best summary would be: "Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia". Fascinating and eye-opening. Even if it's the first book I've read where Mao is the one who benefits from whitewashing. Key insights are how powerful propaganda is and how politics is wholly removed from public opinion and done between private individuals. We like to think this has changed. Ironically this book has its own agenda too (but it's upfront about it). The blurb is basically correct: America's elite being made fools of over their bone-ignorance of China. Some nice bits of Chinese history, American history, folly, cruelty and loss, but not a particularly engaging book, which is a pity. Best thing I could say about it is that this book is a good primer, but really there needs to be more, more meat. This was an excellent history of the American relationship with Asia, with a particular focus on China. Going back to the nineteenth century, when FDR's grandfather made a fortune selling opium in China, this history traces the themes of cultural misunderstanding and a willingness to believe what was desired in the US's Asian relationships. The second world war takes up plenty of space in this volume, with the author carefully discussing the motivations of interested parties and arguing that the war was preventable through a different course of action. Overall, this was a highly interesting history which offers a fresh perspective on well-known events. A mirage is something that appears real or possible but is not in fact so. This is main premise of this book as in reviews and analyzes our interaction and interventions in China. The western powers primarily Britain, and America, tried to force open China's markets and chose their leaders. Evangelicals saw China as a ripe mission field. They believed with a little effort the Chinese would become card carrying Christians complete with western values. The fact that a few Chinese converted was the mirage. The reality was that outside those few, China was never open to Christianity nor western valuesBuying the mirage over the reality cost American in particular and west in general dearly. Bradley contends that the end of WWII would have been different if me had chosen Mao Zedong to lead the fight against the Japanese. Chiang Kai-shek our chosen leader in WWII fit the mirage. He was ineffective on the battlefield as well as politically, but he fit the mirage. Mao Zedong in contrast was effective on the battlefield as well as politically. He would ultimately lead mainland China. Mao Zedong a buddhist nationalist didn't fit the mirage. The US China lobby convinced the State Department to ignore Mao's out reaches to America. The subsequent fight over who lost China cleared the State Department of diplomats who could have steered American foreign policy in a different direction. America might have realized that the nationalist tendencies of Mao in China and Hồ Chí Minh in Vietnam did not have to end in their becoming Communist. This is book's primary argument. It explores the issue of what could have been.
The book is useful to anyone interested in going to China. Missionaries interested in China will have their perspectives challenged. I certainly did. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
From the bestselling author of Flags of our Fathers, Flyboys, and The Imperial Cruise, a spellbinding history of turbulent U.S.-China relations from the 19th century to World War II and Mao's ascent. In each of his books, James Bradley has exposed the hidden truths behind America's engagement in Asia. Now comes his most engrossing work yet. Beginning in the 1850s, Bradley introduces us to the prominent Americans who made their fortunes in the China opium trade. As they -- -good Christians all -- -profitably addicted millions, American missionaries arrived, promising salvation for those who adopted Western ways. And that was just the beginning. From drug dealer Warren Delano to his grandson Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from the port of Hong Kong to the towers of Princeton University, from the era of Appomattox to the age of the A-Bomb, The China Mirage explores a difficult century that defines U.S.-Chinese relations to this day. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)327.51073Social sciences Political Science International Relations Asia China & KoreaClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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Among these merchants were Warren Delano, the maternal grandfather of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The foreign policy of both Theodore Roosevelt and FDR are key parts of this book as they operated on false assumptions of China as a place where the Chinese peasants were eager to be Americanized and convert to Christianity. This view was promulgated by what Bradley calls the China Lobby, lead by influential and wealthy businessmen like the publisher Henry Luce. Key figures in the China Lobby were the Soong Family, Charlie Soong and his daughters Soong Ai-ling, Soong Ching-ling, and Soong Mei-ling who were American educated and Christian converts. Soong Mei-ling married Chiang Kai-shek and together and gained power by deluding the China Lobby and American government for financial support while in fact creating a cruel but ineffectual dictatorship over China.
I found this book very illuminating about the history of China and Chinese-American international relations. Bradley also has a lot of suppositions about how a more realistic approach to China by the US government could've prevented the severity of the Pacific theater of World War II as well as the wars in Korea and Vietnam. He certainly makes a good point that the US could've responded positively to calls for alliance from Mao, a more effective fighter against Japan than Chiang, and someone who was no less a communist or tyrant than America's World War II ally Josef Stalin. On the other hand I am very turned off by Bradley's snarky tune and frequent use of jokey nicknames for the figures in this book. For all I know,The China Mirage may be 100% factual, but Bradley's writing style makes me doubt it.
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