Chiang Kai-Shek

School Library Journal

Gr 7-9 Billed as a ``biography,'' this volume is a history of China in the 20th Century, written in straightforward textbook style, with occasional brief comments about the personality and personal life of Chiang Kai-Shek, and occasional longer digressions to explain background events such as the Boxer Rebellion, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the rise of Communism in China, and American policies in Asia during World War II. The text depends heavily on information drawn from standard works on China by John Fairbank, Orville Schell, and Theodore White, as these historians are often quoted. A picture of Chiang Kai-Shek as an unscrupulous, opportunistic, and ambitious man emerges fitfully from the dense screen of information on political, military, and revolutionary forces, but students will have to search elsewhere for a more intimate and complete portrait of this world leader. Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, N.J.