Chiang Kai-shek’s Politics of Shame

“By elucidating Chiang from within a Chinese cultural frame, Huang makes a genuine contribution to studies of Chiang Kai-shek available in English… Informative and thought-provoking. It decisively moves away from the question of whether Chiang failed to stand up to Japan or in fact saved China—the question that has dominated studies of Chiang for nearly eight decades now. She is no doubt right that Chiang sustained and amplified a narrative of humiliation that faded under Mao but which Beijing once again finds useful to promote its agenda.”—Hans van de Ven, China Quarterly