No twentieth-century event was as crucial in shaping China’s worldview, and no one can understand China, and its relationship with America today, without this definitive work. Yet it also offers surprising insights into contemporary China. Throughout, Forgotten Ally shows how the Chinese people played an essential role in the wider war effort, at great political and personal sacrifice.įorgotten Ally rewrites the entire history of World War II. Drawing on Chinese archives that have only been unsealed in the past ten years, he brings to vivid new life such characters as Chiang’s American chief of staff, the unforgettable “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, and such horrific events as the Rape of Nanking and the bombing of China’s wartime capital, Chongqing. Rana Mitter focuses his gripping narrative on three towering leaders: Chiang Kai-shek, the politically gifted but tragically flawed head of China’s Nationalist government Mao Zedong, the Communists’ fiery ideological stalwart, seen here at the beginning of his epochal career and the lesser-known Wang Jingwei, who collaborated with the Japanese to form a puppet state in occupied China. Yet its drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue remains little known in the West. The war began in China, two years before Hitler invaded Poland, and China eventually became the fourth great ally, partner to the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. He focuses his narrative on three towering leaders - Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong, and the lesser-known collaborator Wang Jingwei - and extends the timeline of the war back to 1937, when Japanese and Chinese troops began to clash, fully two years before Hitler invaded Poland.The epic, untold story of China’s devastating eight-year war of resistance against Japan.įor decades, a major piece of World War II history has gone virtually unwritten. In this emotionally gripping book, made possible through access to newly unsealed Chinese archives, Rana Mitter unfurls the story of China's World War II as never before and rewrites the larger history of the war in the process.

China was the fourth great ally, partner to the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, yet its drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue remains little known in the West. Summary: 'For decades, a major piece of World War II history has gone virtually unwritten.

Forgotten Ally by Rana Mitter