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Different countries give different opening dates for the period of the Second World War, but perhaps the most compelling is 1937, when the ´Marco Polo Bridge Incident´ plunged China and Japan into a conflict of extraordinary duration and ferocity. This book focuses on this incident.

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Winner of the Duke of Westminster Medal for Military Literature

Different countries give different opening dates for the period of the Second World War, but perhaps the most compelling is 1937, when the ´Marco Polo Bridge Incident´ plunged China and Japan into a conflict of extraordinary duration and ferocity - a war which would result in many millions of deaths and completely reshape East Asia in ways which we continue to confront today.

With great vividness and narrative drive Rana Mitter´s book draws on a huge range of new sources to recreate this terrible conflict. He writes both about the major leaders (Chiang Kaishek, Mao Zedong and Wang Jingwei) and about the ordinary people swept up by terrible times. Mitter puts at the heart of our understanding of the Second World War that it was Japan´s failure to defeat China which was the key dynamic for what happened in Asia.

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The best study of China´s war with Japan written in any language ... comprehensive, thoroughly based on research, and totally non-partisan. Above all, the book presents a moving account of the Chinese people´s incredible suffering ... A must read for anyone interested in the origins of China´s contribution to the making of today´s world Akira Iriye

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Rana Mitter is Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Cross College. He is the author of A Bitter Revolution: China´s Struggle with the Modern World . He is a regular presenter of Night Waves on Radio 3.

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