What do you think?
Rate this book
Light on China
战时中国： 一个美国人眼中的中国，1940-1946
1940 年到 1946 年，美国作家格兰姆·贝克走访了当时中国十多个极具战时特色的城市，详细记录了所见所闻并整理成书。贝克从香港出发，经柳州抵达重庆，又跟随路易·艾黎长住宝鸡，随后转至洛阳等城市，最后停留在北平。一路上，作者一方面记录了上至高级政府官员、部队军官商贾富户，下至工人、贫苦市民、农民、难民等不同人的生活和状态；另一方面，描述了日军轰炸柳州、重庆、洛阳等城市的情景，记录了中国军队对抗日军侵略的战况，以及美国政府、军队在中国的举措和表现。
在记录和呈现当时中国社会状态的同时，贝克也写下了自己的思考与分析：国民党逃到台湾是无法避免的，中国共产党的胜利是不可避免的，美国对华政策的偏差与失误是源自对中国的不甚了解，等等。此外，贝克还以其丰富的学识，对中国社会和美国社会进行了比较，他敏锐地发现两个社会的差异性以及忽视这种差异所带来的荒谬的结果。类似充满见识的分析全书随处可见。
本书在美国出版后，便受到了广泛的关注，一度被列为美国大学生了解中国的参考书。对于当今的中国的读者而言，本书提供了一个全新的视角来了解抗日战争时期中国的社会状况和人们的具体生活，更有助于深刻理解中华民族在国难当头之际所展现出来的坚强隐忍、不屈服、不放弃的精神品质。
在记录和呈现当时中国社会状态的同时，贝克也写下了自己的思考与分析：国民党逃到台湾是无法避免的，中国共产党的胜利是不可避免的，美国对华政策的偏差与失误是源自对中国的不甚了解，等等。此外，贝克还以其丰富的学识，对中国社会和美国社会进行了比较，他敏锐地发现两个社会的差异性以及忽视这种差异所带来的荒谬的结果。类似充满见识的分析全书随处可见。
本书在美国出版后，便受到了广泛的关注，一度被列为美国大学生了解中国的参考书。对于当今的中国的读者而言，本书提供了一个全新的视角来了解抗日战争时期中国的社会状况和人们的具体生活，更有助于深刻理解中华民族在国难当头之际所展现出来的坚强隐忍、不屈服、不放弃的精神品质。
824 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 1, 2008
7 people are currently reading
319 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 7, 2017
I started with the Sentry abridged reissue; I will continue with the U. Washington Press reprint of the whole work.
The first half of the book documents life in Chongqing under the rule of the corrupt and semi-despotic Kuomintang. A constellation of characters appear, relief workers, boorish businessmen, educated Chinese bohemians and dandies from the comprador class, peasants worn down by disease and malnutrition. The New Zealander Rewi Alley, director of the industrial cooperatives in unoccupied territory (who later lived in the PRC at the invitation of the Communists), lends the author a loess cave inhabited by two puppies and an eagle. He demystifies the exoticism of the land and exposes the true nature of the social relations. It's an object lesson for the intentions of U.S. foreign policy (our current Afghanistan commitment should come to mind). The concrete and vivid descriptions of the elegant prose are sometimes assisted by the sketches, but a contemporary audience could be offended by what it perceives as an array of stereotypes.
In the second half of the book, the author describes the collapse of the Kuomintang front below the Yangtse, when the Japanese chose to isolate and starve South China. He describes an existence divorced from the realities of the war; architects at universities who hopefully describe a world to build after the victory are shot with their students; the nightlife and the unusual yet vibrant mixture of cultural and nationality is wiped away by the Japanese offensive taking place at the same time as D-Day, the collapse of Fascist Italy, and the Soviet victories over Germany. Famine visits the landscape yet the peasants are bled dry by the government's and their middlemen's exactions. Meanwhile the propaganda machine depicts a China opposite the grim reality on the ground. No doubt as today some politician or high-ranking officer was bruiting fake news about nonexistent progress.
His analysis of US foreign policy, as governed by businessmen and amateurs, makes sobering reading, and can be easily applied to our current debacles.
The first half of the book documents life in Chongqing under the rule of the corrupt and semi-despotic Kuomintang. A constellation of characters appear, relief workers, boorish businessmen, educated Chinese bohemians and dandies from the comprador class, peasants worn down by disease and malnutrition. The New Zealander Rewi Alley, director of the industrial cooperatives in unoccupied territory (who later lived in the PRC at the invitation of the Communists), lends the author a loess cave inhabited by two puppies and an eagle. He demystifies the exoticism of the land and exposes the true nature of the social relations. It's an object lesson for the intentions of U.S. foreign policy (our current Afghanistan commitment should come to mind). The concrete and vivid descriptions of the elegant prose are sometimes assisted by the sketches, but a contemporary audience could be offended by what it perceives as an array of stereotypes.
In the second half of the book, the author describes the collapse of the Kuomintang front below the Yangtse, when the Japanese chose to isolate and starve South China. He describes an existence divorced from the realities of the war; architects at universities who hopefully describe a world to build after the victory are shot with their students; the nightlife and the unusual yet vibrant mixture of cultural and nationality is wiped away by the Japanese offensive taking place at the same time as D-Day, the collapse of Fascist Italy, and the Soviet victories over Germany. Famine visits the landscape yet the peasants are bled dry by the government's and their middlemen's exactions. Meanwhile the propaganda machine depicts a China opposite the grim reality on the ground. No doubt as today some politician or high-ranking officer was bruiting fake news about nonexistent progress.
His analysis of US foreign policy, as governed by businessmen and amateurs, makes sobering reading, and can be easily applied to our current debacles.
July 9, 2023
Might be my favorite book on China to date. Peck is a remarkably keen observer who elevates his firsthand accounts of living and working in (mostly Nationalist) China during World War II into a sweeping historical opus. Some of the prominent themes include the incompetence of the KMT government under Chiang Kai Shek, the plight of the peasants under China's feudal land system, the surprisingly entangled relationships between the KMT, Japanese occupiers, and puppet coastal elite...
Of course Peck writes about the Flying Tigers, Nanjing Massacre, and other (in)famous events of the Chinese theatre, but he does so with a fresh take. For example, instead of focusing on the heroic stories of the Flying Tigers, Peck highlights the interaction between the Chinese coolies building the 14th Air Force airfields and American servicemen, the complacence in the KMT armed forces caused by the arrival of "miracle" American machines, and how the strategic disagreements between Chennault and Stilwell manifested on the ground. He convincingly cuts through all the propaganda of the era and presents a refreshingly clear view of wartime China.
Two Kinds of Time deserves the full five stars because it completely opened my eyes to this period in history. From bribing pirates for passage into China to experiencing Japanese bombings to meeting with Madame Chiang, Peck has really written a living history. It's a shame that Peck wasn't around for the pivotal developments in China during the latter half of the 20th century. I have no doubt that a sequel to Two Kinds of Time would have been as timeless a work of history.
Of course Peck writes about the Flying Tigers, Nanjing Massacre, and other (in)famous events of the Chinese theatre, but he does so with a fresh take. For example, instead of focusing on the heroic stories of the Flying Tigers, Peck highlights the interaction between the Chinese coolies building the 14th Air Force airfields and American servicemen, the complacence in the KMT armed forces caused by the arrival of "miracle" American machines, and how the strategic disagreements between Chennault and Stilwell manifested on the ground. He convincingly cuts through all the propaganda of the era and presents a refreshingly clear view of wartime China.
Two Kinds of Time deserves the full five stars because it completely opened my eyes to this period in history. From bribing pirates for passage into China to experiencing Japanese bombings to meeting with Madame Chiang, Peck has really written a living history. It's a shame that Peck wasn't around for the pivotal developments in China during the latter half of the 20th century. I have no doubt that a sequel to Two Kinds of Time would have been as timeless a work of history.
January 28, 2023
第一次看到「工合」組織的名字是這本書，
作者淡然自若地描述了工合成員的日常生活。
並對他們熟練地在早晨起床使用牙刷刷牙表達了嘲弄的欽佩之情。
作者淡然自若地描述了工合成員的日常生活。
並對他們熟練地在早晨起床使用牙刷刷牙表達了嘲弄的欽佩之情。
June 17, 2025
And a materiel view of the world hasn’t left the us or its state since peck pointed it out
October 6, 2020
Graham Peck first went to China just out of Yale in the mid 1930s. "Two Kinds of Time" is the follow-on volume to "Through China's Great Wall" which was published in 1940. A fine sketch artist, Peck illustrates his book with impressions of the people and places that he saw in the last decade of Republican China.
December 27, 2015
The Pacific theater of World War II and the Chinese civil war seen by a US writer living in Kuomintang China. Vivid depiction of what it was like for ordinary Chinese. Chiang Kai-shek comes out looking very bad indeed.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews