A Military History of China

Front Cover
David Andrew Graff, Robin Higham
University Press of Kentucky, Mar 9, 2012 - History - 324 pages

Gaining an understanding of China's long and sometimes bloody history can help to shed light on China's ascent to global power. Many of China's imperial dynasties were established as the result of battle, from the chariot warfare of ancient times to the battles of the Guomindang (KMT) and Communist regimes of the twentieth century. China's ability to sustain complex warfare on a very large scale was not emulated in other parts of the world until the Industrial Age, despite the fact that the country is only now rising to economic dominance.

In A Military History of China, Updated Edition, David A. Graff and Robin Higham bring together leading scholars to offer a basic introduction to the military history of China from the first millennium B.C.E. to the present. Focusing on recurring patterns of conflict rather than traditional campaign narratives, this volume reaches farther back into China's military history than similar studies. It also offers insightful comparisons between Chinese and Western approaches to war. This edition brings the volume up to date, including discussions of the Chinese military's latest developments and the country's most recent foreign conflicts.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
Continuity and Change
19
State Making and State Breaking
39
The Northern Frontier
57
Water Forces and Naval Operations
81
Military Writings
97
The Qing Empire
115
The Taiping Rebellion A Military Assessment of Revolution and Counterrevolution
135
The National Army from Whampoa to 1949
193
The SinoJapanese Conflict 19311945
211
Political Power Grows Out of the Barrel of a Gun Mao and the Red Army
229
Always Faithful The PLA from 1949 to 1989
249
Chinas Foreign Conflicts since 1949
267
Recent Developments in the Chinese Military
285
Chinese Place Names
305
About the Contributors
307

Beyond the Marble Boat The Transformation of the Chinese Military 18501911
153
Warlordism in Early Republican China
175

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About the author (2012)

David A. Graff, associate professor of history and director of the East Asian Studies program at Kansas State University, is the author of Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300--900.

Robin Higham, professor of history emeritus at Kansas State University, is the author and editor of many books, including Why Air Forces Fail: The Anatomy of Defeat.

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