China's trial by fire : the Shanghai war of 1932 /

Jordan's work is primarily a study of the military and diplomatic developments that occurred in China early in 1932 revolving around the 33-day war that broke out in Shanghai between Japan and China. Jordan (Ohio Univ.) argues that this war foreshadows the more intense battle for Shanghai and then all of China in 1937 by revealing the courage of the Chinese (both the 5th Army, responsive to the Nanjing government of Chiang Kai-shek, and the 19th Route Army, critical of Chiang and responsive to the Nationalist Cantonese Guomindang (GMD) leadership, in the face of overwhelming Japanese air, naval, and ground forces. He is less effective in sustaining his assertion that the incident was orchestrated by the Kwantung Army after the Mukden Incident as a diversion to consolidate their control of Northeast China, or in his analysis of the impact of the struggle on GMD operations against the Chinese Communists in Kiangsi Province. In short, the study of the war is solid, but Jordan does not provide enough supportive data and analysis to sustain many of his other claims. This book will interest those studying the Nanjing Decade in China and military history. V. J. Symons Augustana College (IL)