Victorious in Defeat by Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine

Victorious in Defeat by Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine
alexander pantsov
steven levine

Victorious in Defeat | The Life and Times of Chiang Kai-shek, China, 1887-1975 by Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine looks back on the life of Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek.

An extensively researched, comprehensive biography of Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, one of the twentieth century’s most powerful and controversial figures

Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) led the Republic of China for almost fifty years, starting in 1926. He was the architect of a new, republican China, a hero of the Second World War, and a faithful ally of the United States. Simultaneously a Christian and a Confucian, Chiang dreamed of universal equality yet was a perfidious and cunning dictator responsible for the deaths of over 1.5 million innocent people.

This critical biography is based on Chiang Kai-shek’s unpublished diaries, his extensive personal files from the Russian archives, and the Russian files of his relatives, associates, and foes. Alexander V. Pantsov sheds new light on the role played by the Russians in Chiang’s rise to power in the 1920s and throughout his political career—and indeed the Russian influence on the Chinese revolutionary movement as a whole—as well as on Chiang’s complex relationship with top officials of the United States. It is a detailed portrait of a man who ranks with Stalin, Roosevelt, Hitler, Churchill, and Gandhi as leaders who shaped our world.

Alexander V. Pantsov is a professor of history and holds the Edward and Mary Catherine Gerhold Chair in the Humanities at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. Born in Moscow, Pantsov graduated from Moscow State University Institute of Asian and African Studies in 1978. He has published more than ten books, among them The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution 1919-1927 and Mao Zedong.

Steven I. Levine is research faculty associate in the department of history at the University of Montana. Levine has published extensively in the fields of modern Chinese politics and foreign policy as well as American-East Asian relations.

  • ISBN: 9780300260205
  • 736 pages
  • March 21, 2023

Publisher: Yale University Press