CHIANG KAI-SHEK

This is wrongly defined as a biography. To be sure, the great Chinese leader is the dominant figure throughout, but the book is much more than a biography. It is an analysis of the development of the new China, of the new Japan. It is a step by step study of the processes by which the Sino-Japanese war inevitably came into being. It is a sympathetic picture of China, its character and its people. It is a hope that two nations, both with much to give the world and each other, can find peace. It is a criticism of Great Britain's policy in the extreme eastern part of Asia -- a study of the part Russia and, through the pact, Germany, may play. And it is a history of the progress of the Sino-Japanese war, in its various manifestations. There is enough of personal experience to give an authentic note of first hand knowledge, but it is in no sense a travel book. Occasionally one is aware of awkward phrasing, perhaps the fault of translation. But on the whole it is essentially readable.