Category Archives: Republican China

Discussion of Chinese history from about 1911 to 1949

Review of The Man on Mao’s Right

Posted on February 6, 2018 by Robert

Portrait of a diplomat Ji, Chaozhu. The man on Mao’s right: from Harvard yard to Tiananmen Square, my life inside China’s Foreign Ministry. New York: Random House, 2008. For those interested in the rise of the Chinese diplomatic establishment, this … Continue reading →

Posted in Book reviews, History, Republican China | Comments Off on Review of The Man on Mao’s Right

Review of China Nurse, 1932-1939

Posted on January 22, 2018 by Robert

On the front lines Ewen, Jean. China nurse, 1932-1939. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1981. Jean Ewen was a Canadian nurse who spent 6 years in China, working first with Catholic missionaries, then with the Chinese Communists’ 8th and New 4th … Continue reading →

Posted in Book reviews, History, Republican China | Comments Off on Review of China Nurse, 1932-1939

Review of Decadence Mandchoue

Posted on January 16, 2018 by Robert

Indefatigable reiteration Backhouse, Edmund Trelawny. Decadence Mandchoue: The China Memoirs of Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse. Ed. Derek Sandhaus. Hong Kong: Earnshaw, 2011. Make no mistake about it: Decadence Mandchoue is a work of pure fantasy, for the most part a … Continue reading →

Posted in Book reviews, Republican China | Comments Off on Review of Decadence Mandchoue

Chiang Kai-shek Meets Tu Yueh-sheng

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Robert

This note picks up from my last post on the sources and claims of Sterling Seagrave’s 1985 book, The Soong Dynasty (SD). SD enjoyed a fourteen-week run on the New York Times best-seller list and launched Seagrave’s career as a … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Republican China | 2 Comments

A Historical Relic?

Posted on July 23, 2015 by Robert

I recently ran across the Qing Research Portal, a website which unfortunately has stopped updating. It offers the “ECCP Reader”, an electronic version of Hummel’s Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, but the Windows version is not available, so I … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Republican China, Research methods | Comments Off on A Historical Relic?

The Green Gang and the Blue Villa

Posted on February 21, 2015 by Robert

Over the last four or five years, I’ve put in many hours looking at the details of Sterling Seagrave’s 1985 book, The Soong Dynasty. The book describes the rise and fall of China’s influential Soong family, and its connections with … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Republican China | Comments Off on The Green Gang and the Blue Villa

The Death of Phyllis Li

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Robert

Anecdotes are the opium of popular history. They are the easiest things to add into any historical narrative or description, need few or no connections with the general subject, and are seldom subjected to a hard look by picky reviewers. … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Republican China | Comments Off on The Death of Phyllis Li