History CHINA AT WAR: The Second Sino-Japanese War 19371945

China and Japan: The War 1937-1945 examines the eight-year conflict that transformed East Asia and became one of the defining struggles of the Second World War. Beginning with the Japanese expansion in Manchuria and the crisis that led to full-scale war in 1937, the book follows the conflict through the battles of Shanghai and Nanking, the Japanese occupation, Chinese resistance, guerrilla warfare, the bombing of Chongqing, the internationalization of the war after Pearl Harbor, Allied intervention, the campaigns in Burma and the final defeat of Japan in 1945. At its center is the human dimension of the conflict: massacres, forced labor, sexual violence, famine, displacement, disease and the destruction of cities and communities. The book also examines the political struggle between Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government and the Communist movement, showing how the war against Japan simultaneously shaped the future of China. The Japanese surrender brought victory, but not lasting peace. The occupation ended, yet China soon entered another devastating civil war, while the memory of Japanese aggression continued to influence relations between the two countries for generations. A comprehensive historical account of the war that changed the destiny of China and reshaped the modern history of Asia.