Soong Dynasty

Rating:
Summary: argues that they were gangsters, pure and simple
Review: This is an excellent, though highly partisan, look at the Soong family in all of its machinations. It has great scholarly value in that its suppositions are based on documents that were unearthed by the Freedom of Information Act from the FBI and other groups that investigated the shady dealings of the Soongs for various American politicians. The result is a convincing argument, in my view, that: 1) the Soongs (with few exceptions) were brutal thugs bent on power and money with little regard to the welfare of the people of China; 2) General Chiang was from the start the creature of the Green Gang gangsters, the only constant loyalty he exhibited in a life of sleazy vacillation; 3) many Americans, from the Luces to Wilkie (thought not FDR or Truman), were their dupes. Because of the new documentary sources, this argument gains new relevence here with all the new proof. It is both sad and pathetic to see how Americans deluded themselves, eventaully at the cost of millions of Chinese lives, to pursue the crude PR illusions that the charming Soongs and Chiang Kai Shek spun.

Only one of the three Soong sisters comes off well. As they said: "one of them loved money, one of them loved power, and one of them loved China." It is a truly devastating indictment.

There are a lot of things that this book is not, and one of them is a "balanced view" that advances counter arguments for the other opinion, that is, Luce's and others like him. As such, it will appear biased to some. It also does not present a general view of the historical period, which if the reader lacks one would make it far less valuable as an intro to a complex period in China's development. That menas this book is really in the province of scholars and their arguments, which are beyond my interest in many respects. Finally, this is also not an in-depth psychological biography. You don't feel like you get to know who they were and why the acted the way they did.

Recommended for all serious students of China. There is not a single page of this book that is dull, whether or not you believe the perspective of the author.