Few phases of history were as heavy with implications for the world at large than the turbulent years through which China moved from the overthrow of the last imperial dynasty in 1911, through anarchy, civil war and invasion, to the final triumph of the Communists in 1949 - yet few periods are as little known by the wider world, and so little understood. Professor Dreyer's impressive account of China at war is both an important contribution to this new series of studies of modern wars in their full political, social and ideological contexts, and also a valuable introduction to the birth- confused, bloody and painful as it was - of the future superpower.

Edward L. Dreyer

Introduction 1 Military reform and revolution, 1901-11 2 Peiyang Army ascendancy, 1911-19 3 High Warlordism, 1919-25 4 The Northern Expedition, 1925-31 5 Diseases of skin and heart, 1931-7 6 The Sino-Japanese War, 1937-41 7 China and the Second World War, 1941-5 8 The Chinese Civil War, 1945-9 Conclusion