Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

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Mike Blake
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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#16

Post by Mike Blake » 25 Nov 2010, 13:55

Boxer Uprising
I will work through my biblography and list some of the more useful and interesting works. Here's A-B.

Barnes, Capt AAS. On Active Service With the Chinese Regiment. London: Grant Richards, 1902.
interesting view of the fighting from one regiments perspective.

Bickers, Robert & RG Tiedemann (Eds). The Boxers, China and the World. Plymouth UK: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.
Essays on various aspects, many from Chinese sources and viewpoint.

Bigham, Clive. A Year in China 1899-1900. With Some Account of Admiral Sir E. Seymour’s Expedition. London: MacMillan, 1901.
Fascinating first hand account

Buck, David S (Ed). Recent Studies of the Boxer Movement. Chinese Studies in History, Spring-Summer 1987, Vol XX, No 3-4. NY: Sharpe, 1987.
Another collection of essays concentrating on the Boxers themselves.

If anyone has material on the conflict they would recommend I'd very much like to hear about it, please., so pleas PM me.

Mike

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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#17

Post by PVWALSH » 11 Jun 2011, 20:49

CHINESE MILITARY AFFAIRS, 1910-1949: A CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS A BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Compiled by Paul V. Walsh

A.)-GENERAL STUDIES.

Chang Jui-te. “The National Army from Whampoa to 1949.” pp.193-209. in A Military History of China.
edited by David A. Graff and Robin Higham Cambridge: Westview Press, 2002.

Cherepanov, A.I. As Military Adviser in China. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1982.

Cornish, Paul. “Small arms of Nationalist China 1937-1945.” Imperial War Museum Review, No.5
(1990), pp.69-78.

Dreyer, Edward L. China at War 1901-1949. Modern Wars in Perspective Series. NewYork: Longman,
1995.

Elleman, Bruce A. Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795-1989. Warfare and History Series.London: Routledge,
2001.

Guoqi, Xu. “The Great War and China's Military Expedition Plan.” The Journal of Military History.
Vol.72, No.1 (January 2008), pp.105-140.

Hooton, E.R. The Greatest Tumult: The Chinese Civil War 1936-49. London: Brassey's, 1991.

Jowett, Philip. Chinese Civil War Armies 1911-49. Men-At-Arms Series No.306. London: Osprey, 1997.

------. The Chinese Army 1937-49: World War II and Civil War. Men-at-Arms Series
No.424. London: Osprey, 2005.

De Lee, Nigel. “The History of the [Communist] Chinese Armed Forces.” pp.10-35. in The Chinese
War Machine: A technical analysis of the strategy and weapons of the People's Republic of China
. Edited by
James E. Dornan, Jr., and Nigel de Lee. New York: CrescentBooks, 1979.

Liu, F.F. A Military History of Modern China 1924-1949. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1956.

Nafziger, George F. The Growth and Organization of the Chinese Army (1895-1945). West Chester,
Ohio: The Nafziger Collection, 1999.

Rhoads, Edward J.M. The Chinese Red Army, 1927-1963: An Annotated Bibliography. Harvard East
Asian Monographs. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964.

Sacca, John Wands. “Like Strangers in a Foreign Land: Chinese Officers Prepared at American
Military Colleges, 1904-37.” The Journal of Military History. Vol.70, No.3 (July 2006), pp.703-742.

Tuchman, Barbara W. Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911-45. New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1970; 1971.

War History Bureau, Ministry of National Defense. Military Campaigns in China: 1924-1950. Taipei,
Taiwan: MAAG Military History Office, 1966.

Wei, William. “'Political Power Grows Out of the Barrel of a Gun’: Mao and the Red Army.”
pp.229-248. in A Military History of China. edited by David A. Graff and Robin Higham. Cambridge:
Westview Press, 2002.

Whitson, William W. The Chinese High Command: A History of Communist Military Politics,
1927-71
. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973.

Wilson, Dick. China's Revolutionary War [1926-49]. Wars of the Modern Era. London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1991.

Worthing, Peter. “The Road Through Whampoa: The Early Career of He Yingqin.” The Journal of
Military History
. Vol.69, No.4 (October 2005), pp.953-985.


B.)-NAVAL FORCES.

Wright, Richard N.J. The Chinese Steam Navy 1862-1945. London: Chatham Publishing, 2000.


C.)-AIR FORCES.

Anon. “Air Force Insignia No.16 – China: Part 1 [1914-1945].” and “Air Force Insignia No.17 –
China: Part 2 [1944-1950].” Insignia Magazine, Issue No.11 (Spring 1999), pp.74, 84-88.

Anderson, Lennart. A History of Chinese Aviation: Encyclopedia of Aircraft and Aviation in China until 1949.

Guangqiu, Xu. “The Chinese Air Force with American Wings.” War & Society. Vol.16, No.1 (May
1998), pp.61-81.

Herold, Miroslav. “The Warlord's Air Force [Li Tsi-shen, 1924-37].” Insignia Magazine, Issue No.10
(Winter 1998), pp.40-44.

Leary, William M., Jr. “Air Transport for China: The Early Years.” Aerospace Historian, Vol.19, No.1
(March 1972), pp.32-37.


D.)-ARMORED FORCES.

Chan, Andy. “The Chinese Civil War and the Birth of the PLA Tank Force.” Journal of Military
Ordnance
, Vol.12, No.1 (January 2002), pp.11-14.

Malmassari, Paul. Les Trains Blindés 1826-1989. Editions Heimdal, 1989. [Chapter “Chine.” pp.162-168.]

Stibal, Terry L. “Japanese Tanks in the 'Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution'.” A.F.V.
News
, Vol.32, No.1 (January-April 1997), pp.2-3.

Zaloga, Steven. “Armour in China.” Military Modelling 1983 Manual. (1983), pp.4-9.


E.)-THE WARLORD PERIOD, 1911-28.

Bonavia, David. China's Warlords. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Chan, Anthony. Arming the Chinese: The Western Armaments Trade in Warlord China, 1920-
1928
. Vancouver, British Colombia: University of British Colombia Press, 1982.

Co, Terence. "Diseases of the Skin & Heart: The War of Chinese Reunification, 1916-28." Strategy & Tactics, Issue
No.269 (July-August, 2011), pp.18-27.

Drage, Charles. General of Fortune: The Story of One-Arm Sutton. London: Heinemann, 1963. [Frank
Sutton served as an advisor to Zhang Zuolin, Warlord of Manchuria]

Impey, Lawrence. The Chinese Army as a Military Force. 2nd Edition Tientsin: Tientsin Press, 1926.

Jowett, Philip. Chinese Warlord Armies 1911-30. Men-at-Arms Series No.463. London: Osprey, 2010.

Lary, Diana. Warlord Soldiers: Chinese Common Soldiers 1911-1937. Contemporary China Institute
Publications. London: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

McCord, Edward. “Civil War and the Emergence of Warlordism in Early Twentieth Century
China.” War & Society. Vol.10, No.2 (October 1992), pp.35-56. [I don't have a copy of this article.]

------. The Power of the Gun: The Emergence of Modern Chinese Warlordism. Berkeley, California:
University of California Press, 1993.

------. “Warlordism in Early Republican China.” pp.175-192. in A Military History of China. edited by
David A. Graff and Robin Higham Cambridge: Westview Press, 2002.

Sheridan, James E. Chinese Warlord: The Career of Feng Yu-hsiang. Stanford, California: Stanford
University Press, 1966.

Sutton, Donald S. Provincial Militarism and the Chinese Republic: The Yunnan Army, 1905-25.
Michigan Studies on China. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1980.

Waldron, Arthur. From War to Nationalism: China's Turning Point, 1924-1925. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1995.


F.)-THE REUNIFICATION OF CHINA, 1926-37.

Jordan, Donald A. The Northern Expedition: China's National Revolution of 1926-1928. Honolulu,
Hawaii: University Press of Hawaii, 1976.

de Lee, Nigel. “The Far Eastern Experience.” pp.127-151. in The Roots of Counter-Insurgency: Armies
and Guerrilla Warfare, 1900-1945
. Edited by Ian F.W. Beckett. London: Blandford Press, 1988.

van der Ven, Hans. “New States of War: Communist and Nationalist Warfare and State Building
(1928-1934).” pp.321-397. in Warfare in Chinese History. edited by Hans van de Ven. Leiden: Brill, 2000.


G.)-THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR / SECOND WORLD WAR, 1937-45.

Argyle, Christopher J. “China Ravaged: Japanese aggression in 1937: a curtain-raiser for the
greater conflict that would engulf the world.” War Monthly. Issue No.6 (1975), pp.42-48.

Calvert, Michael. “Shanghai 1937: China's International playground is drenched with blood as
Japan's 'Force of Protection' enter the Whangpoo.” War Monthly. Issue No.44 (1977), pp.10-17.

Carlson, Evans Fordyce. The Chinese Army: Its Organization and Military Efficiency. New York:
Institute of Pacific Relations, 1940; Westport, Connecticut: Hyperion Press, 1975.

Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. New York: Basic
Books, 1997.

Gordon, David M. “The China-Japan War, 1931-1945 [Historiographical Essay].” The Journal of
Military History
. Vol.70, No.1 (January 2006), pp.137-182.

Hsiung, James C. and Levine, Steven I. (Eds.). China's Bitter Victory: The War with Japan 1937-1945.
Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1992.

Hu Pu-yu. A Brief History of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). Taipei, Taiwan: Chung Wu
Publishing, 1974.

Jowett, Philip S. Rays of the Rising Sun: Armed Forces of Japan's Asian Allies 1931-45 Volume
1: China and Manchukuo
. Solihull, West Midlands: Helion & Company, 2004.

Katsuichi, Honda. The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National
Shame
. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1999.

Lary, Diana. “Defending China: The Battles of the Xuzhou Campaign [1938].” pp.398-427. in
Warfare in Chinese History. edited by Hans van de Ven. Leiden: Brill, 2000.

------. “Drowned Earth: The Strategic Breaching of the Yellow River Dyke, 1938.” War in History.
Vol.8, No.2 (2001), pp.191-207.

MacKinnon, Stephen R. “The Sino-Japanese Conflict, 1931-1945.” pp.211-227. in A Military History of
China
. edited by David A. Graff and Robin Higham. Cambridge: Westview Press, 2002.

------. Wuhan, 1938: War, Refuggees, and the Making of Modern China. Berkeley, California:
University of California Press, 2008.

Stanley, Col. Roy M. Prelude to Pearl Harbor. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1982. [Chapter 3 “The
Enemy: China and Its Armed Forces.” pp.67-94.

Teitler, Ger and Radtke, Kurt W. (Eds.) A Dutch Spy in China: Reports on the First Phase of the
Sino-Japanese War (1937-1939).
Brill's Japanese Studies Library
Vol.10. Leiden: Brill, 1999.

Train, Bian R., “The China Incident, 1937-41: A Strategic Analysis.” Strategy & Tactics, Issue No.259
(November-December 2009), pp.6-17.

Webb, L. Dean. “When Tigers Fight: The War in Asia, 1944.” Command Magazine, Issue No.26
(January-February 1994), pp.12-21.

Wilson, Dick. When Tigers Fight: The Story of the Sino-Japanese War 1937-1945. London:
Hutchinson, 1982.


H.)-THE CHINESE CIVIL WAR, 1946-49.

Chassin, Lionel Max. The Communist Conquest of China: A History of the Civil War 1945-1949.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1965

Chen, Edward. “Ferocious Bears of Kinmen [25 October, 1949].” Military Heritage, Vol.12, No.4
(January 2011), pp.38-43, 73.

Doyle, Robert and Mydans, Carl. “Civil War in China (1945-1949).” pp.48-57. in The Violent Peace: A
Report on Wars in the Postwar World
. Edited by Carl Mydans and Shelley Mydans. New York: Atheneum,
1968.

Lynch, Michael. The Chinese Civil War 1945-49. Essential Histories Series No.61. London: Osprey, 2010.

Rees, David. “China 1946-49: Red Star in the East.” pp.1-15. in War in Peace: Conventional and
Guerrilla Warfare since 1945
. Edited by Sir Robert Thompson. New York: Harmony Books, 1981; 1985.

Tanner, Harold M. “Guerrilla, Mobile, and Base Warfare in Communist Military Operations in
Manchuria, 1945-1947.” The Journal of Military History. Vol.67, No.4 (October 2003), pp.1223-1248.

Westad, Odd Arne. Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950. Stanford, California:
Stanford University Press, 2003.

Xiaobing Li. A History of the Modern Chinese Army. Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2007.


Orwell1984
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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#18

Post by Orwell1984 » 21 Jul 2011, 17:08

Image
http://www.amazon.ca/Soldiers-White-Sun ... 331&sr=1-1
New book coming in September 2011 from Schiffer.

sjchan
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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#19

Post by sjchan » 05 May 2012, 16:43

Li Tsung Jen wrote:For the Second Sino Japanese war I highly recomend the following if you can find them:

The Best english source is:

The Sino Japanese war 1937-1941 by Frank Dorn. Best english account of the war.

China at War 1901-1949 by Edward Dreyer also great.

When Tigers Fight by Dick Wilson. This is OK.
These are very dated. For a more balanced and modern version, try

The Battle for China, edited by Mark Peattie, Edward J Drea and Hans van de Ven, Stanford University Press 2011

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Robert24
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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#20

Post by Robert24 » 14 Oct 2012, 15:42

The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945

I’ve read through a good portion of this book. I wish I had it a couple of years ago when I was doing some research for a game. A new look and a fresh take on the Sino-Japanese war of 1937-45. Highly recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Battle-China- ... +for+china

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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#21

Post by sjchan » 08 Jan 2014, 18:18

A couple of new books have been published recently; reviews seem to be good. Wonder if anyone has read them.

Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze by P Harmsen

China's War with Japan, 1937-1945: The Struggle for Survival by Rana Mitter

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Robert24
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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#22

Post by Robert24 » 01 Apr 2014, 05:17

Jowett, China's Wars, Osprey Publishing, New York, NY, 2013

A fresh overview of the wars from 1894 to 1949. Lots of drawings and pictures with relevant captions, and a good amount of insight.

sjchan
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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#23

Post by sjchan » 09 Apr 2014, 09:32

sjchan wrote:A couple of new books have been published recently; reviews seem to be good. Wonder if anyone has read them.

Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze by P Harmsen

China's War with Japan, 1937-1945: The Struggle for Survival by Rana Mitter
I have read Harmsen's book and I think it is an excellent one. The only book in English on the Battle of Shanghai in 1937, it was well written, generally even handed (covers both the Nanjing and Tongzhou massacres) though drawing primarily from Chinese and Western (sources). The book is well researched and well written. Could use some more (and better) maps, but this is not exactly hard-core military history. I don't particularly like the title; Shanghai is no Stalingrad, but I suppose it helps to sell books. Overall a timely and good addition to the existing literature

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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#24

Post by YC Chen » 11 Apr 2014, 16:13

Robert24 wrote:Jowett, China's Wars, Osprey Publishing, New York, NY, 2013

A fresh overview of the wars from 1894 to 1949. Lots of drawings and pictures with relevant captions, and a good amount of insight.
I've read Jowett's new book and think it's neither very good nor very bad. The contents were not very sophisticated and some myths already cleared by recent research have been repeated over and over again. However, a wonderful point is that the photos used in it are rare and reproduced in fairly high quality. I have found 3 or 4 interesting photos that I have never seen before, the photos of Wu Peifu's improvised armored car and Chinese mountain gun in the battle of Suiyuan is particularly useful to me.

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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#25

Post by Stephen_Rynerson » 12 Apr 2014, 22:47

Robert24 wrote:Jowett, China's Wars, Osprey Publishing, New York, NY, 2013

A fresh overview of the wars from 1894 to 1949. Lots of drawings and pictures with relevant captions, and a good amount of insight.
I have this book along with all of Jowett's other China-related books. While Jowett does a great job of collecting and curating photos, the books really are best viewed as "Introduction to . . ." texts. This is because, as far as I can tell, Jowett doesn't read Chinese or any other languages relevant to researching 20th Century Chinese history other than English (he certainly doesn't cite foreign language sources in his bibliographies), and even then he overwhelmingly relies on English-language secondary sources. Thus, if someone has spent much time at all researching some particular aspect of modern Chinese military history, they aren't likely to find much in the way of new information about that particular subject.

That said, China's Wars, Soldiers of the White Sun, and Armies of Warlord China are all beautiful-looking books, so from a "coffee table" book perspective I have to say they are a success (my wife, who is not a fan of military history at all, actually started reading China's Wars because she idly flipped through it on my desk and really liked the artwork).

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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#26

Post by oirob » 23 May 2014, 08:39


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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#27

Post by Stephen_Rynerson » 24 May 2014, 04:21

oirob wrote:"Who is who" in China 1925:

https://archive.org/details/whoswhoinchinaco00poweuoft

I'll note that the fifth edition from 1936 is also available for free download: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL2326493 ... o_in_China

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YC Chen
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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#28

Post by YC Chen » 25 Jul 2014, 15:47

Does anyone have this new book also by Philip Jowett? The Armies of Warlord China 1911-1928
http://www.amazon.com/The-Armies-Warlor ... se+warlord

As I have been an enthuisat of Warlord Era for years, I don't think I can find much new information in this book. However, I really lust for the "over 600 rare photographs and illustrations"(as mentioned in the brief introduction) :lol:

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Mike Blake
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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#29

Post by Mike Blake » 25 Jul 2014, 19:21

Yes, I have it. It it is a slightly more in depth coverage of the topic than his Osprey book, with text which covers the same ground, so if you have had an interest in the period for a while and accumulated lots of books and information it will not add to your understanding. But as you say what makes it special are the photos - extraordinary! For me, new to the period, it seemed a must and indeed that is what it has proved to be. There are some new colour plates too along the Osprey lines.

If only I could discover something similar for the Boxer Uprising!

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Re: Recommended reading on China at War 1895-1949

#30

Post by YC Chen » 26 Jul 2014, 15:03

Thanks a lot, it seems that I can get one in the future.

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