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The Sino-Japanese War

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45. After several years of rising tension, and the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, full-scale war between Japan and China broke out in the summer of 1937. The Japanese captured many major Chinese ports and cities, but met with fierce resistance, despite internal political divisions on the Chinese side. When the Americans entered the war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese found themselves fighting on several fronts simultaneously, and finally capitulated in August 1945. This notoriously brutal conflict left millions dead and had far-reaching consequences for international relations in Asia.

With:

Rana Mitter
Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford

Barak Kushner
Senior Lecturer in Japanese History at the University of Cambridge

Tehyun Ma
Lecturer in Chinese History at the University of Exeter

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Available now

47 minutes

Last on

Thu 8 May 2014 21:30

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

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READING LIST:

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David P. Barrett, Larry N. Shyu (eds.), Chinese Collaboration with Japan, 1932-1945: The Limits of Accommodation (Stanford University Press, 2001)

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Timothy Brook, Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China (Harvard University Press, 2007)

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Edward Drea, Mark Peattie, Hans van de Ven (eds.), The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945 (Stanford University Press, 2010)

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David Earhart, Certain Victory: Images of World War II in the Japanese Media (ME Sharpe, 2007)

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Joshua Fogel (ed.), The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography (University of California Press, 2000)

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Akira Iriye, The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific (Routledge, 1987)

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Barak Kushner, The Thought War: Japanese Imperial Propaganda (University of Hawaii Press, 2007)

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Stephen R. MacKinnon, Diana Lary, Ezra F. Vogel (eds.), China at War: Regions of China, 1937-45 (Stanford University Press, 2007)

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Rana Mitter, China’s War with Japan, 1937-1945: The Struggle for Survival (Penguin, 2013)

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S. C. M. Paine, The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949 (Cambridge University Press, 2012)

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Jay Taylor, The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China (Harvard University Press, 2011)

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Yuma Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II (Harvard University Press, 2009)

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Odd Arne Westad, Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950 (Stanford University Press, 2003)

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Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Melvyn Bragg
Interviewed Guest Rana Mitter
Interviewed Guest Barak Kushner
Interviewed Guest Tehyun Ma
Producer Thomas Morris

Broadcasts

  • Thu 8 May 2014 09:00
  • Thu 8 May 2014 21:30

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