The China Mission

This is an excellent book. Kurtz-Phelan has done a wonderful job researching a part of history that has received very little attention. The book is extremely well-written. I was so enthralled with the book, that I literally missed my subway stop while reading it, a quality reserved only for about .5% of the books I have ever read. I particularly liked Kurtz-Phelan’s use of primary sources to give the perspective of the different players, including—intriguingly—Chiang Kai-Shek’s dairies. The reader comes away understanding the challenges of foreign intervention, the importance of on-the-ground knowledge of a situation, and Marshall’s high personal standards. During a period of many global challenges, Kurtz-Phelan has managed to stay focused on the history itself, letting the reader make his own conclusions about how to apply this to today. Nevertheless, the book provides excellent background to understanding modern China and how the country has arrived to where it is today. The book would be a welcome gift to the professional historian as well as anyone who enjoys reading about the world today and a lot in between.

Well-told story of a great man.

Excelente livro que ajuda a esclarecer como se formou a pressão pelo envolvimento americano no Vietnã. Creio que se trata de um aspecto histórico pouco conhecido no Brasil, portanto este livro merece ser lido.

Proved very helpful for my degree

The book seems too short to fully explain and detail out everything involved in the China Mission after WWII. It does give a good overview and does identify many of the issues George Marshall faced trying to bring peace and democracy to China. There are many lessons learned mentioned towards the end of the book that he applied, from the start, with his implementation of the Marshall Plan in Europe. The big take aways for me were accountability and not enabling leaders that don't directly benefit the people. At the end of the book, it seemed to detail how providing resources to a leader that mismanages the resources or didn't take care of the needs/concerns of the people, only seemed to make the problem worse. The book finishes up stating how Marshall made pre-conditions for aid to Europe dependent on the European countries working/deciding together and being held accountable for their actions/benefits to the people.