The most recommended books on Chiang Kai-shek

Who picked these books? Meet our 5 experts.

5 authors created a book list connected to Chiang Kai-shek, and here are their favorite Chiang Kai-shek books.
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Accidental State

By Hsiao-ting Lin,

Book cover of Accidental State: Chiang Kai-Shek, the United States, and the Making of Taiwan

John Grant Ross Author Of Formosan Odyssey: Taiwan, Past and Present

From the list on Taiwan’s history.

By John Grant Ross Author

Who am I?

I’m a Kiwi who has spent most of the past three decades in Asia. My books include Formosan Odyssey, You Don't Know China, and Taiwan in 100 Books. I live in a small town in southern Taiwan with my Taiwanese wife. When not writing, reading, or lusting over maps, I can be found on the abandoned family farm slashing jungle undergrowth (and having a sly drink).

John's book list on Taiwan’s history

Book cover of Playing in Isolation: A History of Baseball in Taiwan Book cover of A Culinary History of Taipei: Beyond Pork and Ponlai Book cover of A Taste of Freedom: Memoirs of a Taiwanese Independence Leader Book cover of Accidental State: Chiang Kai-Shek, the United States, and the Making of Taiwan Book cover of Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China's First Great Victory Over the West

Why did John love this book?

How did Taiwan become the country it is today, how did it become the Republic of China? Hsiao-ting Lin, a leading Taiwanese historian and an archivist at Stanford’s Hoover Institute, convincingly argues that the Nationalist state in Taiwan under Chiang Kai-shek came about in large part from happenstance. The book draws on both English- and Chinese-language archival materials, including newly released official files and personal papers to explain what happened to Taiwan in the crucial years following World War II; it also examines what didn’t happen but might have, such as the island being placed under temporary American trusteeship. Accidental State is unbiased and nuanced history, and packed with fun but intelligent counterfactual nuggets.

Accidental State

By Hsiao-ting Lin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Accidental State as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The existence of two Chinese states-one controlling mainland China, the other controlling the island of Taiwan-is often understood as a seemingly inevitable outcome of the Chinese civil war. Defeated by Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to Taiwan to establish a rival state, thereby creating the "Two Chinas" dilemma that vexes international diplomacy to this day. Accidental State challenges this conventional narrative to offer a new perspective on the founding of modern Taiwan.

Hsiao-ting Lin marshals extensive research in recently declassified archives to show that the creation of a Taiwanese state in the early 1950s owed more to serendipity than…

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The Long March

By Sun Shuyun,

Book cover of The Long March: The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth

Simon Adams Author Of Eyewitness Titanic

From the list on major events that changed the 20th century.

By Simon Adams Author

Who am I?

I only ever enjoyed one subject at school, and that was history. I read history books for pleasure, and then studied the subject at university, along with politics. As an adult, I worked in publishing and then began to write history books for myself, books to be read by both children and adults. History has remained my passion all my life, and the five books I have chosen here are just some of the many fine history books that deal with the major events of the recent 20th century. I hope you enjoy my selection.

Simon's book list on major events that changed the 20th century

Book cover of The Republic: The Fight For Irish Independence Book cover of The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream Book cover of Guilty Men Book cover of The Long March: The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth Book cover of Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege

Why did Simon love this book?

In 1934 more than 200,000 members of the Chinese Communist Party left their bases in southern China and marched 8,000 miles across country to escape the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kaishek. The march is the founding myth of the Chinese Communist Party, but the reality, as brilliantly exposed in this book, was brutal and savage: just one-fifth survived a march that need never have taken place and which was mainly designed as a propaganda exercise to promote the leadership of Mao Zedong.

The Long March

By Sun Shuyun,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Long March as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The Long March, Sun Shuyun uncovers the true story behind the mythic march of Mao's soldiers across China, exposing the famine, disease, and desertion behind the legend.In 1934, in the midst of civil war, the Communist party and its 200,000 soldiers were forced from their bases by Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist troops. Led by Mao Tse Tung, they set off on a strategic retreat to the barren north of China, thousands of miles away. As Sun Shuyun travels along the march route, her interviews with survivors and villagers show that the forces at work during the days of…

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A Force So Swift

By Kevin Peraino,

Book cover of A Force So Swift: Mao, Truman, and the Birth of Modern China, 1949

Moss Roberts Author Of Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel

From the list on modern Asia.

By Moss Roberts Author

Who am I?

I have a strong, if contrarian, interest in modern history, Asian history in particular. I have published more than a dozen articles and book reviews on the subject, and I have taught courses on modern Asian history (China, Japan, Vietnam, India) at New York University, where I have been a professor since 1968. A brief history of my somewhat unusual academic career may be found in a 50-page memoir published via Amazon in 2020 together with an appendix containing a sampling of my short writings. It is titled Moss Roberts: A Journey to the East. The memoir but not the appendix is free via Researchgate. In addition, I have studied (and taught) the Chinese language for more than half a century, and published translations of classical works of literature and philosophy.   

Moss' book list on modern Asia

Book cover of The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America Book cover of Pan-Asianism and Japan's War 1931-1945 Book cover of Viet Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present Book cover of Toward- Freedom: An Autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru Book cover of A Force So Swift: Mao, Truman, and the Birth of Modern China, 1949

Why did Moss love this book?

President Truman sends George Marshall to China in December 1945 on a special mission to unify the Communists and Nationalists and create a non-Communist China. Marshall returns to the US in early 1947. The mission has failed. Had he been truly neutral as a broker, could the mission have succeeded?

A Force So Swift

By Kevin Peraino,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Force So Swift as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • Winner of the 2018 Truman Book Award

A gripping narrative of the Truman Administration's response to the fall of Nationalist China and the triumph of Mao Zedong's Communist forces in 1949--an extraordinary political revolution that continues to shape East Asian politics to this day.
 
In the opening months of 1949, U.S. President Harry S. Truman found himself faced with a looming diplomatic catastrophe--"perhaps the greatest that this country has ever suffered," as the journalist Walter Lippmann put it. Throughout the spring and summer, Mao Zedong's Communist armies fanned out across mainland China,…

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A Pail of Oysters

By Vern Sneider,

Book cover of A Pail of Oysters

John Grant Ross Author Of Taiwan in 100 Books

From the list on novels set in Taiwan.

By John Grant Ross Author

Who am I?

I’m a Kiwi who has spent most of the past three decades in Asia. My books include Formosan Odyssey, You Don't Know China, and Taiwan in 100 Books. I live in a small town in southern Taiwan with my Taiwanese wife. When not writing, reading, or lusting over maps, I can be found on the abandoned family farm slashing jungle undergrowth (and having a sly drink).

John's book list on novels set in Taiwan

Book cover of Bu San Bu Si: A Taiwan Punk Tale Book cover of Heaven Lake Book cover of A Pail of Oysters Book cover of Lord of Formosa Book cover of Green Island

Why did John love this book?

Published in 1953, this was the first English-language novel on the White Terror period and was long-banned in Taiwan. Sneider, better known for his comedic bestseller The Teahouse of the August Moon, came to Taiwan to do research for this moving novel. It tells the story of 19-year-old villager Li Liu, who travels to Taipei to recover his family’s kitchen god, which was stolen by Nationalist soldiers. Li Liu’s fate becomes entwined with that of Ralph Barton, an American journalist who finds himself drawn into the dangerous world of underground politics.

A Pail of Oysters

By Vern Sneider,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Pail of Oysters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The most important English-language novel ever written about Taiwan.


"Touching, tragic; a testimony to the stubbornly optimistic human spirit."

-The San Francisco Chronicle


Set against the political repression and poverty of the White Terror era in Taiwan, A Pail of Oysters tells the moving story of nineteen-year-old villager Li Liu and his quest to recover his family's stolen kitchen god. Li Liu's fate becomes entwined with that of American journalist Ralph Barton, who, in trying to report honestly about Kuomintang rule of the island, investigates the situation beyond the propaganda, learns of a massacre, and is drawn into the world…

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Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister

By Jung Chang,

Book cover of Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China

Alison R. Marshall Author Of The Way of the Bachelor: Early Chinese Settlement in Manitoba

From the list on to reimagine Chinatown.

By Alison R. Marshall Author

Who am I?

I’ve always been fascinated by Chinese culture. My great uncle owned an import-export shop in 1920s Montreal and many of the things in his shop decorated my family home. An aunt who worked in Toronto’s Chinatown took me to see a Chinese opera performance and this began my journey to understand Chinese thought and culture first with an MA in Chinese poetry and then with a Ph.D. in East Asian Studies. After I learned that Sun Yatsen had visited Manitoba, where I had moved for work, my attention turned to Chinese nationalism. More than 15 years later, my research and work on KMT culture continues.

Alison's book list on to reimagine Chinatown

Book cover of The New Chinatown Book cover of Brokering Belonging: Chinese in Canada's Exclusion Era, 1885-1945 Book cover of Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking Book cover of Lives of the Family: Stories of Fate & Circumstance Book cover of Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China

Why did Alison love this book?

Having interviewed hundreds of Chinese Canadians, I knew that many of Canada’s earliest Chinese migrants met and gave money to Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China, though most were less enthusiastic about Chiang Kai-shek. This book presented a complicated narrative of US-Chinese relations from the perspective of the Soong sisters, who straddled the boundaries of west and east and lived in a world where most Chinese were excluded because of their race. Similar to many of the bachelors in my book, the sisters were also influenced by KMT politics and religion. Both the Soong sisters and the bachelors knew that religion trumped race and that Christian identities and faith helped them open doors to dominant society that remained closed to most Chinese of the era. 

Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister

By Jung Chang,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA NON-FICTION CROWN 2020**

They were the most famous sisters in China. As the country battled through a hundred years of wars, revolutions and seismic transformations, the three Soong sisters from Shanghai were at the centre of power, and each of them left an indelible mark on history.

Red Sister, Ching-ling, married the 'Father of China', Sun Yat-sen, and rose to be Mao's vice-chair.

Little Sister, May-ling, became Madame Chiang Kai-shek, first lady of pre-Communist Nationalist China and a major political figure in her own right.

Big Sister, Ei-ling, became Chiang's unofficial main adviser - and made…

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