Description
The first American edition of Soviet Russia in China: A Summing-Up At Seventy, signed by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.
Octavo, xv, [1], 432pp. Blue cloth, title stamped in gilt on spine. Stated “first printing 1958” on copyright page, but was preceded by a condensed version in 1957 from the same publisher. Offsetting to endpapers, dust jacket previously taped down. Light toning to leafends, some foxing to endpapers. Complete with 9 fold-out maps of China and Taiwan, from 1923-1949. In the publisher’s dust jacket, $6.00 on front flap, tape marks to both flaps, bright illustrations, a near fine example.
Stamp on front free endpaper, with “Compliments of Gen. Peng Meng-Chi Ca, Chief of the General Staff, Ministry of National Defense, The Republic of China.” This copy is signed by Chiang Kai-shek on the half title, with date below in English.
This work was translated under the direction of Madame Chiang Kai-shek. It was preceded by a condensed version in 1957, also published by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy. The work from 1958 was revised and enlarged to provide “the English reading public a more exact and idiomatic rendering of the book from the original Chinese.”
Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) rose to power as a member of the Kuomintang (KMT) and became the leader of the Nationalist government in China after the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925. Chiang led the Northern Expedition to unify China under the KMT, and subsequently, he served as the leader of the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and the Chinese Civil War (1945-1949). After the KMT’s defeat by the Communist Party of China, Chiang fled to Taiwan in 1949, where he continued to lead the Republic of China until his death in 1975.
