
Forgotten Ally
China's World War II, 1937 - 1945
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Narrated by:
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Simon Vance
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By:
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Rana Mitter
About this listen
The epic, untold story of China's devastating eight-year war of resistance against Japan.
For decades, a major piece of World War II history has gone virtually unwritten. The war began in China two full years before Hitler invaded Poland, and China eventually became the fourth great ally, partner to the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. Yet its drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue remains little known in the West.
Rana Mitter focuses his gripping narrative on three towering leaders: Chiang Kai-shek, the politically gifted but tragically flawed head of China's Nationalist government; Mao Zedong, the Communists' fiery ideological stalwart, seen here at the beginning of his epochal career; and the lesser-known Wang Jingwei, who collaborated with the Japanese to form a puppet state in occupied China. Drawing on Chinese archives that have only been unsealed in the past 10 years, he brings to vivid new life such characters as Chiang's American chief of staff, the unforgettable "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, and such horrific events as the Rape of Nanking and the bombing of China's wartime capital, Chongqing. Throughout, Forgotten Ally shows how the Chinese people played an essential role in the wider war effort, at great political and personal sacrifice.
Forgotten Ally rewrites the entire history of World War II, yet it also offers surprising insights into contemporary China. No 20th-century event was as crucial in shaping China's worldview, and no one can understand China, and its relationship with America today, without this definitive work.
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Story
This deeply researched book describes one of the great forgotten battles of the 20th century. At its height it involved nearly a million Chinese and Japanese soldiers, while sucking in three million civilians as unwilling spectators and, often, victims. It turned what had been a Japanese adventure in China into a general war between the two oldest and proudest civilizations of the Far East. Ultimately, it led to Pearl Harbor and to seven decades of tumultuous history in Asia. The Battle of Shanghai was a pivotal event that helped define and shape the modern world.
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The Curtain to World War Two
- By Michael on 03-01-16
By: Peter Harmsen
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Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942
- By: Ian W. Toll
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss. Pacific Crucible tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history and seized the strategic initiative.
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Astonishingly good.
- By Mike From Mesa on 09-01-12
By: Ian W. Toll
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The Korean War
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 17 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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It was the first war we could not win. At no other time since World War II have two superpowers met in battle. Max Hastings, preeminent military historian, takes us back to the bloody, bitter struggle to restore South Korean independence after the Communist invasion of June 1950.
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Inspiring and Hard Hitting
- By David Ewing on 08-06-07
By: Max Hastings
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The Eastern Front
- A History of the Great War 1914-1918
- By: Nick Lloyd
- Narrated by: Elliot Fitzpatrick
- Length: 22 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on the latest scholarship as well as eyewitness reports, diary entries, and memoirs, Lloyd moves from the great battles of 1914 to the final collapse of the Central Powers in 1918, showing how a local struggle between Austria-Hungary and Serbia spiraled into a massive conflagration that pulled in Germany, Russia, Italy, Romania, and Bulgaria.
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Exceptional
- By Christian Lewis on 05-26-25
By: Nick Lloyd
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The Rising Sun
- The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
- By: John Toland
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 41 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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This Pulitzer Prize-winning history of World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, "a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened - muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating, full of paradox."
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A political as well as military history
- By Mike From Mesa on 07-30-15
By: John Toland
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No Ordinary Time
- Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
- By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 39 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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No Ordinary Time describes how the isolationist and divided United States of 1940 was unified under the extraordinary leadership of Franklin Roosevelt to become the preeminent economic and military power in the world.
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Great at 1.5 speed
- By Brett on 01-04-13
Excellent overview of the China theater
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Any additional comments?
Simon Vance is my favorite narrator, fiction or nonfiction. Terrific job with the pronunciation of innumerable Chinese names and places. A wonderful book on an all-too-often forgotten part of the Second World War.Simon Vance is the best
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Outstanding read, top notch recording, challenging listen
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What made the experience of listening to Forgotten Ally the most enjoyable?
Discovering things that put much into perspective: China's situation in the 20th century and its evolution, Japan's invasion of China and China's war of resistance, the relationship between the Kuomingtang and the communists (Russian and Chinese), the relationship between western countries and Asia a few decades ago, the character of the much maligned Chiang Kai-shek and the enormous difficulties he faced, how American views of China were formed.Have you listened to any of Simon Vance’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
Yes, he is generally quite good. His pronunciation of Chinese words is mostly OK (recognizable, which is already better than what I've heard from certain professors specializing in Asia or even China).Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Yes....not much of the former though I'm afraid.Any additional comments?
A must for anyone who wants to understand 20th century history.A big missing piece
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It's not clear why the author chooses to give Shang ample context and paint scenes of his humanity to cover up or lessen the fact that he was the leader of a notoriously ineffective and corrupt government that ultimately failed, while attacking Stilwell for his (mostly) accurate criticism of the failures of the Nationalists and ignoring Stilwell's precarious position as soldier and diplomat, as well as Stilwell's genuine and well-documented regard for the Chinese.
Questionable historical perspective
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The ill fated chang kai-shek
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However, I have two major complaints. The first is that it focuses way too heavily on Chiang Kai-Shek, Mao Tse-Tung, and Wang Jingwei, and not enough on the commanders, soldiers, or people who had bear the brunt of the fighting and occupation. Even then, more focus is given to Chiang and Mao. My second complaint is that it did not really focus much attention on another collaborator: Puyi, who was made a puppet-emperor of the puppet state of Manchukuo. While I am aware that Rana Mitter has a separate book on Manchuria during WWII/the Second Sino-Japanese War, it is not available on Audible yet.
The Resilience of China
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China Japan War
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Fills an important gap in Western understanding of
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A Different Reality
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