Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 (Library Edition)

Tuchman obviously regards Stilwell as the hero of the tale. It's hard to come to any other conclusion about this deeply humble but brilliant, unwearying but always frustrated man. Yet she is quite fair in assessing the difficulties faced by Stilwell's close-to-home antagonist, Chiang Kai Shek. She is also not sparing in describing the courage, success and tactical genius of Claire Chennault, whose (clearly wrong-headed) conception of the War was opposed to that of Stilwell.

The story of America in China in WWII and its aftermath is so fascinating, so HUGELY important - and still so relatively little publicized - especially in relation to the affairs of MacArthur, Nimitz and Halsey in the Pacific or Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton in Europe.

I long for a movie that will show the fascinating struggle among Stilwell, Chiang, and Chennault in relation to the Japanese and Mao's Communists. It can be said that America's foreign policy in 1943-50 has far less immediate impact in post Cold War Europe today than in Japan, China, Burma, and Indonesia. America's two costly wars since WWII have been in Asia. This book gives a wonderful background to anyone interested in how did the existing state of affairs in China come to pass?

America was intimately involved - particularly two Americans - 1) Claire Lee Chennault, a maverick Cajun from Louisiana who resigned from the American Air Force in rage at their refusal to adopt his revolutionary views on fighters and bombing - and became the head of China's Air Force in 1937; 2) Joseph Stilwell, an upper middle class WASP from a family that went back to the early 1600s, who had been intimately involved with China since the 1920s.

It's just a great story, and it's unlikely you know much of it.


...And We Still Don't Get It   April 25, 2006
P. M Simon (New Mexico)
47 out of 52 found this review helpful

Barbara Tuchman's Pulitzer-winning history, STILWELL and the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN CHINA should be a must-read for every US historian, politician, or businessman dealing with the Middle Kingdom. Tuchman makes a very valid central point- that America doesn't 'get' China, understand recent Chinese history, or interact well with Chinese officials.

That theme has been espoused by others and we should ask if it is so. I can confidently say that Tuchman makes a compelling case. She uses old Vinegar Joe and his relationship with Chiang Kaishek (Jiang Jieshi)as a case study. \

Thus, although STILWELL stands well on its own as a history of US-China relations during WWII or as a biography of the general, those strengths should not obscure the main theme: that the US has not pursued relations with China effectively or listened to our experts.

Before those reading this review start voting "not helpful," let me interject that I speak fluent Mandarin, have lived in Taiwan and the mainland, have been to most of the places described in this history, have been a US diplomat in the PRC, and had an association with the Stilwell Museum in Chongqing.

Tuchman's book is full of nuggets about the life of Chiang and Stilwell, and has many other interesting people woven in: MacArthur, Pat Hurley, Pershing, Mao, Zhou Enlai, Terry and the Pirates, etc. That alone makes the book an excellent read, a fact furthered by Ms. Tuchman's accessible style.

Yet, her main point still hasn't poked anyone in Washington or the US public in the eye, apparently: that the US still sufferes from the delusion that it can somehow "control" or "change" China. As Tuchman remarks, China is not and has never been "ours" to lose, win, or modify.


Answers what happened in the Asian half of WWII.   January 6, 1998
nick_hay@ix.netcom.com (Anaheim, CA, USA)
15 out of 17 found this review helpful

This book explodes the myths and misconceptions of the American people during a time of great upheaval in China and Southeast Asia. It lays out the mistakes and misunderstandings of the America leaders and statesmen in trying to work with the real and supposed leaders of China. Covering the final times of Chinese Warlords through the times of Sun Yat Sen, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and into WWII with the Nationalist Chinese and Mao's Communist movement, this book reveals all of the history and understanding that only Barbara Tuchman is equipped to accomplish. This book holds no punches and exposes the many mistakes made by American leaders, who did not listen to Stilwell, in making foreign policy in an area of the world where foreign policy and gamesmanship was created and practiced to a high art. For example, Madame Chaing's propaganda trips to the US is an excellent example of how the American people and its leaders were duped into believing that the Nationalist Chinese were doing all they could to fight off the Japanese. When in reality they stockpiled the weaponry supplied by the US for their battles against Mao's Communists instead of their intended use against Japan. Ms. Tuchman enlightens the reader that when the Communists and Mao took control of China their hatred of the US for supporting the Nationalist Chinese was a foregone conclusion. Ms. Tuchman's coverage of the China, Burma, India (CBI) theater is masterful as well as her handling of "Vinegar" Joe Stilwell. "Vinegar" Joe is a General more skillfull, humble and knowledgeable than any US General to have ever held the rank. He was a master of winning battles and achieving success with the poorest health conditions, meagerest of men, supplies and support. If Joe Stilwell had the support given to Eisenhower or MacArthur, "Vinegar" Joe would have been recognized as one of America's greatest Generals. But then again, Joe Stilwell was a humble man who got the job done and didn't much care who got the credit. It is unfortunate that Ms Tuchman is no longer with us. This one book (which I have read three times) lays the ground work for understanding Asia and the thinking processes of its leadership in the present world.


Peanut Vinegar   May 3, 2007
Timothy J. Graczewski (Burlingame, CA United States)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

This is a remarkable book and well worth reading nearly four decades after its initial publication. Tuchman is a gifted author and her subject, "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, is an outrageous, memorable figure. Even readers with a limited familiarity with China or the Pacific theater during the Second World War will find "Stilwell and the American Experience in China" captivating.

Joe Stilwell was, to say the least, an unusual Army officer for his generation. He had a gift for languages and was drawn to career-limiting foreign assignments from the moment in he left West Point. He spoke fluent Spanish and French before he accepted a chance posting to China in his mid-thirties primarily because it offered the opportunity to get out of the country and learn a new language and culture. By the time the US entered the Second World War, Stilwell was the most highly rated Corps commander in the Army, but also had many years experience in China and spoke fluent Mandarin. Although George Marshall wanted him to command the first US ground campaign of the war - the TORCH landings in North Africa - Stilwell was sent to Asia because no one else was better qualified to serve in China, a region of great importance after the British were booted quickly out of Hong Kong, Singapore and the rest of East Asia by the Japanese.

The irony of this book is that Stilwell was at once the best-qualified officer in the US Army to serve in Asia in support of Chiang Kai Shek's KMT Army and also the worst possible choice because of his abrasive mien. On the one hand, no other senior officer had his command of the language, years in country, or understanding of the Chinese culture. On the other hand, no other senior officer was as tactless or boorish - two qualities that do not serve one well in Asia. For instance, Stilwell had the habit of assigning mocking and often cruel nicknames to his tormentors, real and perceived. Almost from the beginning, Chiang Kai Shek, his nominal superior in the China theater, was "Peanut" - an insulting moniker that Stilwell used rather openly and regularly and was well-known by the Generalissimo and his staff, an incredible affront to the Chinese sense of position and authority. Even more insulting and offensive was Stilwell's occasional reference to his polio-stricken command-in-chief as "Rubber legs."

Yet, Tuchman is clearly a fan of Stilwell's. She sees in him the same talent, passion and energy that led Secretary of War Stimson and Chief of Staff Marshall to put him in the role and steadfastly defend him in the face of repeated requests for his dismissal by scores of highly placed US, British and Chinese officials, whose number included FDR himself. But after reading "Stilwell" one cannot help but think that Stimson and Marshall made a mistake in sticking with Joe for so long.

"Stilwell" also reads like a case study in the perils and heartaches of coalition warfare. From the outset, the major allies in the CBI Theater - the US, British and Chinese - were fundamentally at odds over objectives and therefore completely out of sync on strategy. The British did not see the point in bothering with China at all and wanted only to regain their colonial possessions, Hong Kong and Singapore above all, and Burma only if convenient and if it could be done without mixing Chinese and Indian troops. Chiang Kai Shek, on the other hand, had little interest in ejecting the Japanese from China in a bloody, all-out racial war, but rather preferred to stockpile American supplies and allow the US Navy and nascent Air Forces to slowly erode the Japanese war machine. Meanwhile, the US was guided by FDR's dream of seeing China emerge as one of the world's great post-war powers, fully on the side of the United States and committed to democracy. Tuchman stresses repeatedly that the US public, and to a certain extent the US government, was greatly misled on the truth of the KMT regime. The missionary lobby and other important Chiang supporters, including high-level visitors that were successfully hoodwinked, such as defeated presidential candidate Wendell Wilkie, generated a flood of propaganda that gave the average American a wildly unrealistic and positive impression of the Chinese ally. Tuchman contends that Stilwell himself saw the balderdash written about the KMT as the primary culprit in the inability or unwillingness of Washington to change policy once it became clear that the continued support Chiang was a waste of resources and American prestige and position.

"Stilwell" succeeds on many levels and will likely remain in print and widely read for decades to come. It is a stellar blend of biography, military history, American foreign policy, US-China relations, and a case study in coalition warfare.



Oustanding work, both scholarly and an enjoyable read.   February 21, 2002
L. Karnay (Fairfax, VA)
11 out of 12 found this review helpful

I dicovered this book by accident in a used book store a few years ago. My first introduction to Barbara Tuchman, and I was hooked. The other reviewers have highly rated the ease of reading this book and I wholeheartedly agree. This is a substantial book on many levels. I would like to comment that in addition to its ease of reading, it brought to light a man that I believe has been neglected by post World War II historians, politicians and his own military. I recall the (1960s) film titled Merrill's Marauders in which General Stillwell makes a brief appearence. Little did I know then what depth of involvement he had in China and that theatre of the war. One knows of Patton, Nimitz, King, Halsey, and of course, Eisenhower and MacArthur, but Stillwell, well, he truly had the most thankless job in WW II. Ms. Tuchman did a wonderful job of describing a China caught between feeble attempts at modernizing and reverence for the old ways, competing political systems and national interests at a time of great change in the world at large. I came away from this book with the utmost respect for General Stillwell.