Chiang Kai-shek's Critical Years, 1935–50

At the peak of his political influence, from 1935 to 1950, Chiang Kai-shek steered China’s development as a nation and shaped global history. Yet he remains an enigmatic figure remembered primarily for losing a decisive civil war to Mao Zedong. A reinterpretation is overdue. Based on Chiang’s own writing, particularly his diary, Chiang Kai-shek’s Critical Years offers context for significant decisions that have long been inadequately explained. Leading scholars analyze key episodes, including Chiang’s call for full military mobilization against Japan in 1937 and against the Chinese Communist Party in 1946. They shed new light on his efforts to accommodate the CCP; his relations with representatives of the United States during the war with Japan; and his ability to hold on to the presidency of the Republic of China after 1949, despite disastrous military failure. This close examination of Chiang’s daily planning and reflection on events reveals his versatility. His achievements were based on astute improvisation that ensured his political survival despite setbacks and weaknesses. The sharpened sense of Chiang’s agency emerging from this important book provides an invaluable foundation for further analysis of the military and political institutional structures he helped build.