The Generalissimo

One of the most momentous stories of the last century is China’s rise from a self-satisfied, anti-modern, decaying society into a global power that promises to one day rival the United States. Chiang Kai-shek, an autocratic, larger-than-life figure, dominates this story.

The story of Chiang Kai-shek is so big, so interwoven with the story of modern China, and so complex, that it has defied a good biographical treatment. Now, Jay Taylor has provided us with a strong, vivid, and eminently readable biography of this major twentieth-century leader that captures his 'life and times' better than any previous work in English. -- William C. Kirby Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University This splendid biography far surpasses previous scholarship on Chiang Kai-shek, providing new insights into the savage international and civil wars in China that raged for almost thirty years as well as Chiang's quarter century on Taiwan where he laid the predicate for democratic governance on the besieged island. -- David Lampton, Hyman Professor and Director of China Studies, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Following his masterful account The Generalissimo's Son, Taylor has fully tapped Chiang Kai-shek's personal diaries and a comprehensive range of sources to provide the most authoritative assessment of this towering figure in the Chinese revolution and global politics of the 20th century. -- Robert Sutter, Visiting Professor of Asian Studies, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Chiang Kai-shek rivaled Mao as a dominant figure in the history of modern China. Taylor has taken a fresh look at his long, eventful life based on new sources, and suggests a controversial but persuasive new reading of Chiang's motives and actions. This vividly realized account will be the authoritative work for a long time to come. -- Andrew J. Nathan, author of China's Transition

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