War Wings: The United States and Chinese Military Aviation, 1929-1949

(Hardback)

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The only comprehensive survey of the aviation aspect of Sino-American relations during the Chinese republican period. Based on extensive research in China, the United States, and Great Britain, this book is the first comprehensive survey of the aviation aspect of Sino-American relations during the Chinese republican period. Xu reveals new information about the important U.S. role in assisting the birth and development of both military and civil aviation in China. Analyzing the significance of air power in both its military and political contexts, Xu argues that the Nationalist Air Force considerably strengthened the Nationalist government's political as well as military positions without changing its existent power structure and temperament. The study also examines the role air power played in the violent partisan and patriotic power struggles within China, a story that illustrates how deeply China's military modernization became intertwined with competing foreign interests. Xu's discussion of the arms trading policies of various foreign powers prior to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War of the 1930s is particularly insightful and revealing. Although America's contribution to the establishment of Chinese aviation was at times undertaken with hesitation, U.S. assistance would ultimately change the balance of power in East Asia.

Reviews

.,."fascinating new book...solid account of China's historic preoccupation with national unity and that country's perception of how a new technology of the times-airpower-could help achieve this goal."-Air & Space Power Journal
...fascinating new book...solid account of China's historic preoccupation with national unity and that country's perception of how a new technology of the times-airpower-could help achieve this goal.-Air & Space Power Journal
This book represents the results of at least a fifteen-year study of the topic and is the most comprehensive date to work in English....Author Xu's extensive research, from the U.S. National Archives, the U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency, and domestic manuscript collections, to the Second Historical Archives, Nanjing, People's Republic of China, and manuscript collections, archives, and published works in Chinese from the PRC and Taiwan, has resulted in a fine study, capped off with endnotes following each chapter, and a complete bibliography, War Wings should be placed on library shelves among the other good books on the world's air forces.-The Journal of Military History
..."fascinating new book...solid account of China's historic preoccupation with national unity and that country's perception of how a new technology of the times-airpower-could help achieve this goal."-Air & Space Power Journal
"This book represents the results of at least a fifteen-year study of the topic and is the most comprehensive date to work in English....Author Xu's extensive research, from the U.S. National Archives, the U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency, and domestic manuscript collections, to the Second Historical Archives, Nanjing, People's Republic of China, and manuscript collections, archives, and published works in Chinese from the PRC and Taiwan, has resulted in a fine study, capped off with endnotes following each chapter, and a complete bibliography, War Wings should be placed on library shelves among the other good books on the world's air forces."-The Journal of Military History

Author Bio

GUANGQIU XU is Associate Professor of History at Iowa Wesleyan College. He has published numerous articles in journals such as Modern Asian Studies, The Journal of Contemporary History, and The Journal of Asian History. He is currently working on another book on the U.S. Congress and its China policy.