A CONTINENT ERUPTS

How a decade of violence in Asia laid the foundation for eventual stability.

In this meticulously researched and carefully rendered study of the region in the period between 1945 and 1955, military historian Spector examines the conflicts that engulfed nearly every country, resulting in untold deaths and misery. Before World War II, the European colonial powers had enforced stability, overturning old empires and drawing new maps. This system was upended by a period of Japanese domination, the end of which created a power vacuum, with many players rushing to fill it. The French and the Dutch tried to reassert themselves, but the colonial game was up. The British looked for an honorable way to withdraw while retaining an economic role, but their power was waning. In many nations, struggles against colonial rules morphed into civil wars: “Regional, religious, ethnic, and ideological differences turned out to be, in many cases, as potent as the desire for social justice and national emancipation or the struggle against racism and colonial exploitation.” Spector is wary of the view that the violence was a matter of Cold War proxies. “It might be more accurate,” he writes, “to say that the Cold War did not spread to Asia; it was invited in.” In fact, it is impossible to find a single definitive model, as the conflict ranged from the open warfare of Korea to the insurgency of the Malayan Emergency. China was in a class of its own for complexity and clashes. Gradually, the politics of the region stabilized, sometimes through compromises and sometimes through military victories. There would be more violence in the following decades—most notably, the Vietnam War—but by 1955, the political framework was largely established. Spector does an admirable job exploring the tumultuous events of his large canvas, and he is willing to look past the headlines for the underlying reasons, motivations, and dynamics of each conflict.

An excellent starting point for anyone who wants to understand modern Asian history.