“A fantastic and complex story finely told.” New York Times Book Review
Description
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.
Praise
“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
“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
“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
Details
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Release Day | Jul 31, 2009 |
| Release Date | August 1, 2009 |
| Release Date Machine | 1249084800 |
| Imprint | Blackstone Publishing |
| Provider | Blackstone Publishing |
| Categories | Biographies & Memoirs, History, Americas, Politics & Social Sciences, Politics & Government, Asia, Historical, Nonfiction - Adult, Nonfiction - All |
Author Bio
Barbara W. Tuchman (1912–1989) was a self-trained historian and author who achieved prominence with The Zimmerman Telegram and international fame with The Guns of August, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1963. She received her BA degree from Radcliffe College in 1933 and worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Pacific Relations in New York and Tokyo from 1934 to 1935. She then began working as a journalist and contributed to publications including The Nation, for which she covered the Spanish Civil War as a foreign correspondent in 1937. Her other books, include The Proud Tower, A Distant Mirror, Practicing History, The March of Folly, The First Salute, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China: 1911-45, also awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In 1980 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected her to deliver the Jefferson Lecture, the US government’s highest honor for intellectual achievement in the humanities.
Narrator Bio
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.
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.
Reviews
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