{"id":423,"date":"2006-12-06T02:56:02","date_gmt":"2006-12-06T07:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=423"},"modified":"2018-08-19T19:56:53","modified_gmt":"2018-08-19T23:56:53","slug":"14856-%c2%a0%c2%a0-robert-smith-thompson-empires-on-the-pacific-%e2%80%95-world-war-ii-and-the-struggle-for-the-mastery-of-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=423","title":{"rendered":"14856. (Robert Smith Thompson) Empires On the Pacific \u2015 World War II<\/span> and the Struggle for the Mastery of Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"

This out\u00adline of the mil\u00adi\u00adtary and diplo\u00admatic his\u00adtory of the Pacif\u00adic the\u00adatre of WWII<\/span> is of mixed val\u00adue. In describ\u00ading the oper\u00ada\u00adtions of Amer\u00adi\u00adcan forces, it is quite good. Thomp\u00adson describes the main bat\u00adtles in lit\u00adtle vignettes, which are well-cho\u00adsen and well-writ\u00adten. But some of the book touch\u00ades on Chi\u00adna, and in these parts, he depends heav\u00adily on the dis\u00adcred\u00adited and gen\u00ader\u00adally worth\u00adless reportage of Edgar Snow, per\u00adpet\u00adu\u00adat\u00ading myths man\u00adu\u00adfac\u00adtured by the Com\u00admu\u00adnist Par\u00adty. Thomp\u00adson believes, like many peo\u00adple once did, that if only Wash\u00ading\u00adton had struck a deal with Mao, they would have built a fruit\u00adful rela\u00adtion\u00adship with him. This is non\u00adsense. Thomp\u00adson is quite right that Gen\u00aderal Stillwell\u2019s eval\u00adu\u00ada\u00adtion of Chi\u00adang Kaishek was basi\u00adcally cor\u00adrect. Chi\u00adang was insuf\u00adfer\u00adably cor\u00adrupt, and made lit\u00adtle seri\u00adous effort to resist the Japan\u00adese, doing only the bare min\u00adi\u00admum that would ensure the flow of aid. How\u00adever, if the Nation\u00adal\u00adists under Chi\u00adang did lit\u00adtle to fight the Japan\u00adese, the Com\u00admu\u00adnists under Mao did absolute\u00adly noth\u00ading. Mao not only had no inter\u00adest in fight\u00ading the Japan\u00adese, he had been hop\u00ading the Japan\u00adese would destroy Chi\u00adang and occu\u00adpy a large part of the coun\u00adtry, which would leave the rest of the coun\u00adtry in his hands and force Stal\u00adin to acknowl\u00adedge his per\u00adma\u00adnent pow\u00ader. In fact, the Com\u00admu\u00adnists\u2019 only known armed exchange with the Japan\u00adese was an acci\u00adden\u00adtal skir\u00admish, which aroused Mao\u2019s fury. He would have entered into a pact with the Japan\u00adese the sec\u00adond it was possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This out\u00adline of the mil\u00adi\u00adtary and diplo\u00admatic his\u00adtory of the Pacif\u00adic the\u00adatre of WWII<\/span> is of mixed val\u00adue. In describ\u00ading the oper\u00ada\u00adtions of Amer\u00adi\u00adcan forces, it is quite good. Thomp\u00adson describes the main bat\u00adtles in lit\u00adtle vignettes, which are well-chosen \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bu-reading-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9310,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions\/9310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}