arkadione reviewed The generalissimo by Jay Taylor
Review of 'The generalissimo' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
This is a very dry book. I love history books but I fell asleep reading this many nights. It was an effort to get through it (took me 2.5 months!) even though I am intensely interested in Taiwanese history. It only started to get interesting after Chiang Kai-Shek retreated to Taiwan and that is 400 pages into this 600 page book. The last 200 pages are about his time in Taiwan up until his death.
This book is very, very kind to CKS. It paints him as a benevolent father figure who knows what's best for the people and not as a power hungry dictator who was obsessed with 'unifying China' whether or not that's what the Taiwanese wanted. There is only 1 sentence in the whole 600 pages mentioning the 2/28 massacre which is still an important event up to this day. It barely mentions martial law and the …
This is a very dry book. I love history books but I fell asleep reading this many nights. It was an effort to get through it (took me 2.5 months!) even though I am intensely interested in Taiwanese history. It only started to get interesting after Chiang Kai-Shek retreated to Taiwan and that is 400 pages into this 600 page book. The last 200 pages are about his time in Taiwan up until his death.
This book is very, very kind to CKS. It paints him as a benevolent father figure who knows what's best for the people and not as a power hungry dictator who was obsessed with 'unifying China' whether or not that's what the Taiwanese wanted. There is only 1 sentence in the whole 600 pages mentioning the 2/28 massacre which is still an important event up to this day. It barely mentions martial law and the white terror. These last two omissions alone tell you the kind of history they are writing for CKS.
The book is a lot of boring back and forth exchanges such as CKS asks for more money and weapons from the US, they say no, CKS rants about it in his journal. The most I learned about CKS, the more I disliked him. I felt this book focused too much on the high level political minutiae than how CKS's decisions affected his soldiers, the war, and the development of Taiwan. I choose to read this book because it had high ratings on GoodReads and frankly there aren't many options.
I shall have to read "Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost" next.