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A Review of “TheGeneralissimo: Chiang Kai-shekand the Struggle for ModernChina”May-Lee Chai aa University of WyomingPublished online: 08 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: May-Lee Chai (2010) A Review of “The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China”, Asian Affairs: An American Review, 37:1,50-51, DOI: 10.1080/00927671003618970

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50 Asian Affairs: An American Review

military of “culture” as a static essence asopposed to “a changing negotiation betweenpast and present” (197). Without such anuanced understanding, military strategiesbased on false interpretations of culture aredoomed to fail.

Porter is a lecturer in the DefenseStudies Department at the British DefenseAcademy, King’s College, University ofLondon.

MAY-LEE CHAIBook Review Editor

University of WyomingCopyright © 2010 Taylor & Francis Group,

LLC

Taylor, JayThe Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek andthe Struggle for Modern ChinaCambridge, MA: Belknap722 pp., $35 hardcoverISBN: 978-0-674-03338-2 hardcoverPublication Date: April 2009

Chiang Kai-shek has been called manythings over the course of his lifetime. Dur-ing World War II, General Joseph Stilwellfamously referred to him as “the Peanut”and “not mentally stable” whereas LordLouis Montbatten reportedly described Chi-ang as “the most impressive Chinese hehad ever seen” (240). Jay Taylor may verywell be the first to ascribe the title “Confu-cian scholar-general” to the notorious Gen-eralissimo of this eponymous biography.Whether one agrees with Taylor may notbe ultimately important after reading thisextensively researched and somewhat revi-sionist account of Chiang Kai-shek’s manyachievements and considerable failures. Forwhat Taylor’s book shows is that Chiangwas a complicated man, unable to tran-scend the contradictions of his times, butalso a figure of paramount importance inChinese history, if not the history of theworld. Call Chiang what you will, but hewas never boring and neither is Taylor’sopus.

Making extensive use of Chiang’s pri-vate diaries, which were previously unavail-able to scholars, Taylor is able to give thereader insight into the private thoughts andmusings of Chiang throughout World WarII and his eventual “government x in exile”during which time he served as president ofthe Republic of China on Taiwan. What Tay-lor uncovers is not exactly a man riven withdoubt or even much self-reflection about theoften ruthless techniques he employed inhis battles against warlords, Japanese in-vaders, and Chinese Communists. Taylornotes, “[H]is diaries reflect little or no re-morse over innocent lives lost by violent actsthat he justified as vitally necessary” (103).

However, contradicting many biogra-phies, Taylor asserts that Chiang was a de-vout Christian who read the Bible dailyand insists that Chiang was not only anti-Communist but truly a democrat at heart.Taylor quotes Chiang, in a moment ofstartling clarity, “When I die if I am stilla dictator, I will certainly go down in theoblivion of all dictators. If, on the otherhand, I succeed in establishing a truly stablefoundation for a democratic government, Iwill live forever in every home in China”(595).

Over the course of the book, Taylor de-tails Chiang’s rise to power as Sun Yat-sen’sright-hand man and then successor, as wellas his power marriage to Soong May-ling,whose money, American education, andWestern ties enabled Chiang to ally himselfwith the United States and Great Britainduring World War II but whose notoriouslycorrupt family also indelibly tainted Chi-ang’s reputation. Taylor insists that althoughthe Soong family and their in-laws mayhave exploited their powerful positions formoney, Chiang himself lived simply and didnot steal from the official coffers—althoughhe also seemed unable to bring himself torein in his in-laws’ excesses. Whether hewas fully aware of their more unsavorybehavior is unclear. The rest of the bookis devoted to Chiang’s relationship withthe United States after the Korean War asChiang initiated reforms to build a morestable economy and government on Taiwan

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Book Reviews 51

while continuing to vow “to recover theMainland,” a dream that Chiang continuedto profess up until his death in 1975 (585).

Taylor depicts Chiang as the right man,perhaps the only man, who could have ledChina during the turbulent wars that nearlycaused the nation to be permanently crip-pled by foreign powers and internal fight-ing. And he is persuasive in describing thereforms that Chiang was able to make on theisland of Taiwan, even as Chiang’s histori-cal legacy there is under attack. However,Taylor also notes some of Chiang’s actions“sharply contradicted the Confucian andChristian teachings that he regularly turnedto, as well as his belief in his own sincerityand moral virtue” (591), such as the bru-tal killings of civilians on Taiwan in 1947and “extensive executions” carried out thereafter he took power.

Scholars will undoubtedly continue todebate Chiang’s contributions to “modernChina.” But Taylor’s scholarship is a signif-icant examination of Chiang’s life and timesand should be essential reading for anyonewho hopes to understand twentieth-centuryChinese history.

Taylor is a research associate at the Fair-bank Center for Chinese Studies at HarvardUniversity.

MAY-LEE CHAIBook Review Editor

University of WyomingCopyright © 2010 Taylor & Francis Group,

LLC

Van Leuven, Nancy andAnthony B. Chan, eds.Dao of CommunicationToronto: Ginger Post320 pp., $75 paperISBN: 978-0-9813251-0-1Publication Date: September 2009

In this clever and useful textbook, the sixth-century BCE Chinese philosophical text at-tributed to Laozi has found a new and de-cidedly modern use. At first, this pairing of

Daoism and modern communications the-ory might seem unusual. After all, in the firstpassage of the Dao De Jing, Laozi asserts“that which can be named is not the Dao,”a statement that has been puzzling philoso-phers for millennia. Meanwhile, communi-cations as an academic field is first and fore-most the study of how people put words,texts, and images—and thus names—to allmanner of activities. But therein lies the ge-nius of the Dao of Communication as a text-book: by using Daoism’s premier text, it en-courages students to question the assump-tions about how and why people commu-nicate, the means available for communica-tion, and the implications of new technologyto both facilitate and obscure meaning.

The text is divided into thirteen chaptersalong with a preface, which provides stu-dents with a basic overview of the philos-ophy known as Daoism. Each subsequentchapter, by different authors, begins withone passage from the Dao De Jing, then usesthis passage to explicate and problematizeissues, theory, and practice in modern com-munications. For example, several chap-ters on communications theory—includingsystems theory, social learning theory,strategic communication, and organiza-tional communication—use Daoist philos-ophy to help students understand complexacademic concepts as well as challenge theirown assumptions about how and why differ-ent groups choose their methods of commu-nication.

In addition to theory, the book also exam-ines practical issues in crosscultural com-munication, mass communication, mediapractices, interpersonal relations, and mar-keting techniques. One chapter even exam-ines that most contemporary of concepts,cloud communication, which has taken Sili-con Valley and software designers by storm,so to speak, over the last decade.

Although the book is intended for com-munications students, it would also be a use-ful text for libraries to carry for studentsstudying Daoism, as the well-informed au-thors provide useful contemporary exam-ples of how Daoism, and specifically the

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