China: Chiang Kai-shek: Death of the Casualty

In the early 1940s, at the height of the Japanese invasion of China, Chiang Kai-shek wrote a book about China's past "humiliation" and future "reconstruction." He titled it China's Destiny, but Chiang might have called it My Destiny. He saw little distinction between his own fate and that of the giant, sprawling, poverty-stricken land that he ruled for just over 20 years. All his life, the lean and ambitious soldier fought bravely, though in the end vainly, to shape history to his personal specifications. When he died of a heart attack last week...