Tea, Drugs, and Jesus: Books and Sources

MARSHALL's SOURCES:

Hyatt, Irwin. Our Ordered Lives Confess: Three Nineteenth-Century American Missionaries in East Shantung. 2014.

A spirited case study of American missionaries operating in Northeast China and the challenges they faced. Essential in terms of understanding the day-in, day-out existence of the missionaries, written by Marshall’s undergraduate advisor.

Platt, Stephen. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War. 2012.

Possibly the best narrative that looks at the Taiping Civil War from the perspective of all of the interested parties, including U.S. missionaries

Miller, Basil. Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek: Christian Liberators of China. 1943.

Fanciful piece of wartime propaganda that encapsulates the sentiments of Christian America towards the wartime government of China. The book deliberately avoids asking whether or not it would be a good or bad thing for China to have Christian liberators – even liberators who merely gave lip service to Christian dogma.

Preston, Andrew. The War Council: McGeorge Bundy, the NSC, and Vietnam. 2006.

Provides details about the disputes involving U.S. policy in Vietnam; adds detail to the classic study, The Best and the Brightest (see below).

Pomfret, John. The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China 1776 to the Present. 2016.

A good survey of U.S.-China relations from America's beginning to the present day, and probably a good place to start to develop a basic understanding of the dynamics of the relationship.

Halberstam, David. The Best and the Brightest. 1969.

When this book came out in 1970 it was a bit of a revelation. The zeitgeist in the early 1970s was not what it was in the early 1960s, and several assumptions that guided the participants had by this point been exposed. This is the book that underscores the necessity of avoiding groupthink in terms of decision-making. It is valuable not only for the lessons it teaches regarding China and Vietnam, but also in what not to do when constructing any kind of work group. Highly recommended.

Seagrave, Sterling. The Soong Dynasty. 1985.

The book that shows just how corrupt the Soong family was in terms of despoiling China and completely fooling U.S. authorities. People should read this with an eye toward how successful the Soongs were in terms of using money and influence to subvert U.S. policy toward China so that it generally worked to the Soongs' benefit.

White, Theodore. In Search of History. 1978.

Theodore White was very much a presence in my life during the 1970s when I read his “Making of the Presidency" series. I was surprised when I received this book as a present to learn that he had gotten his start as a correspondent in China and he had a decidedly different take on matters than did his boss, the owner of Time Life, Henry Luce. Before reading this book I had only the narrowest understanding of how things occurred in China during World War II. Highly recommended.

Dolin, Eric Jay. When America First Met China. 2012.

An excellent account of the early years of the China trade and the beginnings of the involvement of the United States in China

Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China. 1990.

A survey history of early modern China written by the man many considered to be the dean of Chinese studies in his day.

Brady, James. The China Mirage. 2015.

A meditation on the unreal assumptions that drove 19th- and early 20th-century U.S. policies regarding China. This book is also highly recommended not just for what it has to say about China, but the errors in thinking on this topic can be found in U.S. policy in other parts of the world as well.

Kahn, E. J. The China Hands. 1975.

I first read this book in graduate school during a seminar on U.S. diplomatic history. I think that while it does present the position of the China hands, it also makes a fundamental error in that while these remarkable analysts did have a better understanding of China than did the McCarthy-esque stooges who made up the China Lobby, they got some things really wrong.

Brinkley, Alan. The Publisher: Henry Luce and his American Century. 2010.

The story of the mighty publisher of Time, Life, and Fortune. Though China is not the focus of this book, Luce played an important role in the shaping of U.S. policy during and after World War II.

Winchester, Simon. The Man Who Love China. 2008.

The eccentric British scientist Joseph Needham did not really affect U.S. policy toward China. Through his research, however, he did a great deal to change opinions regarding the West’s understanding of China and Chinese scientific insights dating back to the imperial period. Needham was the author of the famous “Needham question” regarding why China ceded its leadership in science and technology to the West. His foundation continues to publish books on the history of Chinese science, as it has since 1948. It is not necessarily a book that relates directly to the United States in China, but it is very good at providing an understanding of how little the West actually grasped in terms of the complexity of China during its imperial era

Tuchman, Barbara. Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911-45. 1971.

Written during the Vietnam War, it reflects certain attitudes of that period. The book details Stilwell’s struggles to extract costs from the Japanese and the frustrations he experienced in dealing with Chiang Kai-Shek and his military. Tuchman argues that while Stilwell possessed numerous virtues and insights into China, he probably wasn’t the ideal man to solve China’s difficulties in waging modern warfare. The 1972 Pulitzer Prize Winner in General Nonfiction. Highly recommended.

MIKE'S SOURCES:

Fleming, Peter. The Siege at Peking. 1959.

A highly readable and informative account of not only the siege of the foreign legations in Peking in 1900 but of the Boxer Rebellion as a whole . If you would like a good narrative of the Boxer Rebellion, you cannot go wrong with this book.

Romanus, Charles F., and Riley Sunderland. Stilwell's Mission to China. 1952.

Romanus, Charles F., and Riley Sunderland. Stilwell's Command Problems. 1953.

Romanus, Charles F., and Riley Sunderland. Time Runs Out in CBI. 1958.

These three volumes make up the "The China-Burma-India Theater" subseries of "United States Army in World War II", the U.S. Army's multivolume official history of itself during that war. They are not casual reading, and like any official history they must be read with the understanding that they may include some bias toward their official sponsor. However, they are well-written, very thorough, and provide great detail for anyone truly interested in the military history of the United States in the often-overlooked China-Burma-India Theater. The first volume covers the period up to October 1943, the second continues the narrative through Stilwell's dismissal in October 1944, and the third takes the reader from there through the end of World War II. Viewed in sequence, the titles alone convey the U.S. Army's post-World War II sense of its efforts in CBI – from initial hope and ambition, to frustration, and finally to disappointment.

Koenig, William J. Over the Hump: Airlift to China. 1972.

Published as Campaign Book No. 23 of the classic Ballantine Books series Ballantine's Illustrated History of the Violent Century. A short, very readable paperback relating the history of the "Over the Hump" airlift between India and China during World War II. Packed with photographs.

Dunn, Morgan W. R. "'Vinegar Joe' Stilwell: The Story of America’s Man on the Ground in WW2 China." History Guild. July 1, 2024.

An article summarizing General Joseph Stilwell's time in the China-Burma-India Theater which criticizes him for his counterproductive behaviors but also criticizes Chiang Kai-shek and supports Stilwell's vision for how the Allies could have achieved success in China. It is available online here.

Shepherd, John E., Jr. "Warriors and Politics: The Bitter Lesson of Stilwell in China." Parameters. March 1989.

An article from the United States Army War College's quarterly journal. It provides a very informative summary of the fraught politics surrounding Roosevelt, Chiang Kai-shek, Stilwell, Chennault, and other important players in the American debate over how to get Chiang to take action against the Japanese. It is available online here

Correll, John T. "Chennault and Stilwell." AIR FORCE Magazine. December 2015.

An article motivated by a view that the conventional historiography of America's experience in China in World War II greatly overstates Joseph Stilwell's achievements and undervalues those of Claire Chennault. It argues that Stilwell was a failure in the China-Burma-India Theater whose behavior was counterproductive – and indeed obnoxious – and that Claire Chennault was actually the leader with the best vision for victory over Japan and had great success in contributing to the ultimate defeat of Japan. The article is highly critical of Stilwell and very supportive of Chennault, and it highlights the successes of air power as the decisive factor in China in World War II. It differs considerably from the U.S. Army official history and Tuchman's book in both in its tone and conclusions, and it provides a glimpse into an alternative historiography of the period. It is available online here.

Kuo, Tai-Chun, Hsiao-ting Lin, and Ramon H. Myers. "Vinegar Joe and the Generalissimo." Hoover Digest. July 30, 2005.

An article based on then-newly opened documents of Chiang Kai-shek's representative in Washington, T. V. Soong, from the Hoover Institution Archives. The article summarizes Chiang's perspective on his government's relations with Stilwell. It is available online here.