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ORIGINAL: Jorge_Stanbury

I read Tuchman's Stilwell and the American in China long time ago; 15 years ago maybe. And I read Rana Mitter's Forgotten ally a month ago. (This is the same "China's war on Japan", just retitled)

Tuchman is a lot more pro-Stilwell than Mitter; maybe because she wrote the book based on Stilwell's notes.

Mitter is more balanced about the strengths and shortcomings of the Generalissimo, and the KMT in general. He made a good case that China was in no condition to do the kind of heavy lifting the Allies expected them to do; in a theater that was not even their 3rd priority, and while Japan was renewing offensive operations (Ichi-Go)

His book is well written and it also go into all the horrors of the war, famine the hardest to read about. In the early chapters he focused on the 3 leaders of China (Mao, Chiang, Wang Jingwei). What I didn't like is that in the late chapters he mostly focused on Chiang and the KMT area. I was hoping to get more about the Reorganized National Goverment.

Also, the book will not go too deep in terms of military operations.