Scars of War

The Impact of Warfare on Modern China

Edited by Diana Lary and Stephen MacKinnon

SERIES: Contemporary Chinese Studies

UBC Press

Throughout its modern history China has suffered from immensedestruction and loss of life from warfare. In its worst periods ofwarfare, the eight years of the Anti-Japanese War (1937-45), millionsof civilians lost their lives. For China, the story of modernwar-related death and suffering has remained hidden. The Rape ofNanking is beginning to be known, but hundreds of other massacres arestill unrecognized by the outside world and even by China itself. Thefocus of Scars of War is the social and psychological, not theeconomic, costs of war on the country. The book is illustrated withcontemporary photographs and woodblock prints. Each chapter isintroduced by a traditional Chinese saying (cheng-yu) on warfare.

RELATED TOPICS: Asian History, Asian Studies, China Studies, History, Military History

This book is outstanding. The chapters are excellent and they cover a lot, in time, space, and intellectual approach. Arthur Waldon, University of Pennsylvania

These essays make concrete the abstractly evoked 'patriotic' sacrifice of millions of Chinese people, offering tough history as an antidote to the easy oblivion of official memory and underscoring the deep human and social scars of war. Carol Cluck, Columbia University

Diana Lary is a professor of history, affiliated withthe Center for Chinese Research, at the University of British Columbia.Stephen MacKinnon is a professor of history at ArizonaState University.

Introduction / Diana Lary and Stephen MacKinnon

1. Burn, Rape, Kill and Rob: Military Atrocities, Warlordism andAnti-Warlordism in Republican China / Edward McCord

2. The Pacification of Jiading / Timothy Brook

3. Atrocities in Nanjing: Searching for Explanations / YangDaqing

4. Ravaged Place: The Devastation of the Xuzhou Region, 1938 /Diana Lary

5. Refugee Flight at the outset of the Sino-Japanese War /Stephen MacKinnon

6. The Politics of Commemoration / Chang Jui-te

7. Between Martyrdom and Mischief / Neil Diamant

Bibliography

Glossary

Index

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