A review by mcguffin
Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 by Barbara W. Tuchman

3.0

Detailed and thorough, the book bogs down sometimes, but it's worth a read through for anyone who wants to know more about the US in China during WW2. It is one of the most critical takes on Chiang Kai Shek and the Nationalist I've ever read, and it spends quite some time on difficulties with corruption, apathy, and ignorance that Stilwell had to face in China. I am not sure how much of this is a historical view of the times the book was written in and how much of it is certain. The books narrative of these faults nicely lines up with the eventual collapse of the KMT, however that may be just as much by design/accident as historical fact. The book makes Stilwell out to be a prickly man with little personal tact put in a place where he could not succeed no matter his personality and where he was as much a politician as a military commander. Despite this, he also comes off as a smart commander and someone who knew more about the region and its people as anyone who could have been sent.