Decisive Encounters The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950

"Odd Arne Westad has written a key work on the civil-war period as well as an essential bibliographic starting point for further research." - The China Journal "This path-breaking, perceptive work merits wide circulation and systematic analysis." - Canadian Journal of History "This book is of fundamental importance to understanding twentieth-century Chinese history, comparative revolution, and early Cold War history. Weaving together strands of military, social, political, and international history, Westad provides by far the best empirically grounded, multi-archival, and comprehensive nationwide analysis of how the Chinese Communist Party achieved victory in the Chinese Civil War of 1946-1950." - Journal of Cold War Studies "Offers meticulous research, drawing on classic reports, recent memoirs, and scholarship in Chinese, Russian, and English based on archival research. . . . More important, [Westad] weaves a grand, sweeping epic of social, cultural, and economic conflict that includes but goes beyond political and military battles. . . . Highly recommended for academic libraries and collections in Chinese history." - Library Journal "Decisive Encounters is a highly readable, comprehensive, and reliable account of a war whose importance we all know but which nonetheless has received little attention." - PACIFIC AFFAIRS "This remarkable survey of a crucial period of Chinese history deserves to be widely read." - Choice