The Rise of the Chinese Republic: From the Last Emperor to Deng Xiaoping

by Edwin P. Hoyt

Traces the history of modern China, describes important leaders, movements and events, and looks at U.S. foreign policy towards China

Genres: History, China

Hardcover

First published October 15, 1988

About the author

Edwin P. Hoyt was a prolific American writer who specialized in military history. He was born in Portland, Oregon to the publisher Edwin Palmer Hoyt (1897–1979) and his wife, the former Cecile DeVore (1901–1970). A younger brother, Charles Richard, was born in 1928. Hoyt attended the University of Oregon from 1940 to 1943.

In 1943, Hoyt's father, then the editor and publisher of The Oregonian, was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as the director of the Domestic Branch, Office of War Information. The younger Hoyt served with the Office of War Information during World War II, from 1943 to 1945. In 1945 and 1946, he served as a foreign correspondent for The Denver Post (of which his father became editor and publisher in 1946) and the United Press, reporting from locations in China, Thailand, Burma, India, the Middle East, Europe, North Africa, and Korea.

Edwin Hoyt subsequently worked as an ABC broadcaster, covering the 1948 revolution in Czechoslovakia and the Arab-Israeli conflict. From 1949 to 1951, he was the editor of the editorial page at The Denver Post. He was the editor and publisher of the Colorado Springs Free Press from 1951 to 1955, and an associate editor of Collier's Weekly in New York from 1955 to 1956. In 1957 he was a television producer and writer-director at CBS, and in 1958 he was an assistant publisher of American Heritage magazine in New York.

Starting in 1958, Hoyt became a writer full-time, and for a few years (1976 to 1980) served as a part-time lecturer at the University of Hawaii. In the 40 years since his first publication in 1960, he produced nearly 200 published works.

While Hoyt wrote about 20 novels (many published under pseudonyms Christopher Martin and Cabot L. Forbes) the vast majority of his works are biographies and other forms of non-fiction, with a heavy emphasis on World War II military history.

Hoyt died in Tokyo, Japan on July 29, 2005, after a prolonged illness. He was survived by his wife Hiroko, of Tokyo, and three children, Diana, Helga, and Christopher, all residing in the U.S.

Reviews

[Peter Corrigan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not much point in writing an extended review, seriously doubt anyone is going to read this. Published in 1989 and almost certainly out of print. That said, I seriously considered 1-star. This is NOT a scholarly history whatsoever. Hoyt was a journalist foremost and this is written with a minimum of documentation almost like an extended magazine piece. His own biases are on display front and center in numerous places, mainly in his support of the Communists during their long struggle with the Nationalists and even after. He trashes U.S. foreign policy consistently and repeatedly and often with little context. Of course he is correct many times, but perhaps not always. The Korean conflict with the Chinese Red Army is 100 percent the fault of the U.S. in his world. There are several outrageous claims that are not supported in footnotes or citations that are almost fantastic, most notably that the Japanese were responsible for starving 30 million Chinese civilians in just a 2-year period. That a long long way from any other figure published for total Chinese deaths in 8 years of WW2 (14-29 million in the recently published book on the war by Rana Mitter, 17-22 in Wikipedia). Errors of that magnitude are really not acceptable or at least should cite a source. That said, this is a pretty good overall summary of the subject matter and he is fairly knowledgeable having spent time there as a reporter. But buy a real history book, I just happened to have this in my library.