China's Inevitable Revolution: Rethinking America's Loss to the Communists
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Description
The pivotal years in the Chinese civil war, 1947-8, found America locked in battle with Mao Zedong and the Communists for the allegiance of China's democratic middle forces. The stakes were high for both sides. As the clouds of Cold War gathered, the US needed the liberals to provide legitimacy to Chiang Kai-shek's increasingly discredited-but staunchly anti-Communist-Nationalist government; the Communists needed the democrats so that the revolution under their leadership could advance from the countryside to the cities. In the polarized atmosphere then engulfing China, whoever lost the battle for the middle forces would face political isolation-and, ultimately, defeat.China's Inevitable Revolutionexplores this tumultuous and decisive battle. It tells the compelling story of assassination, repression, and protest in urban China. It reveals how America's fixation wtih the containing of Communism led in China to the constraining of democracy. In so doing, it demonstrates how America alienated the very democratic forces on which it pinned its hopes, thereby, ironically, contributing to the Communist victory. Content Provided by Syndetics.
ISBN
9781403979773
Publication Date
Winter 11-27-2007
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
City
New York
Keywords
United States, China, foreign relations, government
Disciplines
Asian History | History | United States History
Recommended Citation
Lutze, Thomas, "China's Inevitable Revolution: Rethinking America's Loss to the Communists" (2007). IWU Authors Bookshelf. 24.
https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/bookshelf/24