Overview

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Barbara Tuchman explores American relations with China through the experiences of one of our men on the ground. In the cantankerous but level-headed ""Vinegar Joe,"" Tuchman found a subject who allowed her to perform, in the words of the National Review, ""one of the historian's most envied magic acts: conjoining a fine biography of a man with a fascinating epic story."" Joseph Stilwell was the military attaché to China in 1935 to 1939, commander of United States forces, and allied chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek in 1942-44. His story unfolds against the background of China's history, from the revolution of 1911 to the turmoil of World War II, when China's Nationalist government faced attack from Japanese invaders and Communist insurgents.

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9781433292941

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Reviews

Stilwell performs one of the historian's most envied magic acts: conjoining a fine biography of a man with a fascinating epic story. -- National Review A fantastic and complex story finely told. -- New York Times Book Review Barbara Tuchman's best book...so large in scope, so crammed with information, so clear in exposition, so assured in tone that one is tempted to say it is not a book but an education. -- New Yorker Pam Ward is certainly listenable during this lengthy history of American relations with China through the end of WWII...Tuchman is the most articulate and nuanced of popular historians, and this biography of 'Vinegar Joe' Stilwell, head of American forces in China during WWII, is a thorough critique of American policy in China and of the Chiang Kai-shek regime. -- AudioFile The most interesting and informative book on US-China relations...a brilliant, lucid and authentic account. -- Nation

Pam Ward is certainly listenable during this lengthy history of American relations with China through the end of WWII...Tuchman is the most articulate and nuanced of popular historians, and this biography of 'Vinegar Joe' Stilwell, head of American forces in China during WWII, is a thorough critique of American policy in China and of the Chiang Kai-shek regime. -- AudioFile The most interesting and informative book on US-China relations...a brilliant, lucid and authentic account. -- Nation Stilwell performs one of the historian's most envied magic acts: conjoining a fine biography of a man with a fascinating epic story. -- National Review Barbara Tuchman's best book...so large in scope, so crammed with information, so clear in exposition, so assured in tone that one is tempted to say it is not a book but an education. -- New Yorker A fantastic and complex story finely told. -- New York Times Book Review

Author Information

Barbara W. Tuchman (1912-1989), American historian, was born in New York City and graduated from Radcliffe College in 1933. A self-trained historian, she was a writer for the Nation and an editor for the US Office of War Information. In her later years she was a lecturer at Harvard and the US Naval War College. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1963 for The Guns of August and in 1972 for Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45. She was awarded the 1978 Gold Medal for History from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Pam Ward, an AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator, found her true calling reading books for the blind and physically handicapped for the Library of Congress' Talking Books program. The fact that she can work with Blackstone Audio from the beauty of the mountains of Southern Oregon is an unexpected bonus.

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