China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism
About this audiobook
Chinese leaders once tried to suppress memories of their nation’s brutal experience during World War II. Now they celebrate the “victory”—a key foundation of China’s rising nationalism.
For most of its history, the People’s Republic of China limited public discussion of the war against Japan. It was an experience of victimization—and one that saw Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek fighting for the same goals. But now, as China grows more powerful, the meaning of the war is changing. Rana Mitter argues that China’s reassessment of the World War II years is central to its newfound confidence abroad and to mounting nationalism at home.
China’s Good War begins with the academics who shepherded the once-taboo subject into wider discourse. Encouraged by reforms under Deng Xiaoping, they researched the Guomindang war effort, collaboration with the Japanese, and China’s role in forming the post-1945 global order. But interest in the war would not stay confined to scholarly journals. Today public sites of memory—including museums, movies and television shows, street art, popular writing, and social media—define the war as a founding myth for an ascendant China. Wartime China emerges as victor rather than victim.
The shifting story has nurtured a number of new views. One rehabilitates Chiang Kai-shek’s war efforts, minimizing the bloody conflicts between him and Mao and aiming to heal the wounds of the Cultural Revolution. Another narrative positions Beijing as creator and protector of the international order that emerged from the war—an order, China argues, under threat today largely from the United States. China’s radical reassessment of its collective memory of the war has created a new foundation for a people destined to shape the world.
About the author
Rana Mitter is the author of several books, including A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World and Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II, 1937–1945, named a Book of the Year in The Economist and Financial Times. He has commented on Asia for the BBC, NPR, CNN, New York Times, History Channel, and the World Economic Forum at Davos. Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford, he is also a Fellow of the British Academy and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Dennis Kleinman has been narrating audiobooks since 2013 and has at least forty titles to his credit. His career began with a biography of a British general, Sir David Fraser, and then transitioned into a series of period romance audiobooks, which opened up his creative approaches and choices to the characters that he brought to life. His body of work includes drama and mysteries, coupled with fan fiction and adventure. Adding to his resume is a three-part audiobook series covering espionage across Eastern Europe, in the Birth of an Assassin series, as well as the in-depth exploration of a family's heritage in Out of The Shoebox. Dennis worked with Douglass Davies on his novel Steinburg-a work about international political intrigue, which allowed Dennis the artistic freedom to explore his own European origins and early family history. Working with Ed Renehan of New Street Nautical Audio, Dennis has narrated half a dozen nautical themed audiobooks, including Desperate Voyage, the account of Donald Crowhurst's attempt to sail in a round the world yacht race in 1968. Dennis has worked on South African themed works that include The Lion Seeker, about early Jewish settlement and emigration to South Africa. He narrated and brought many characters to life in The Zebra Affaire, set in 1976 apartheid South Africa. Dennis adopts the various South African accents in an authentic, meaningful, and sensitive way, allowing his own South African roots to flow through the narration. Dennis was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and emigrated to the United States in 1980 after completing his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Cape Town. He lives with his family in Los Angeles.
