| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Jay Taylor. The Generalissimo's Son: Chiang Ching-Kuo and the Revolutions in China and Taiwan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2000. Pp. xiv, 520. $39.95.

The story of the succession of Chiang Ching-kuo (1910–1988) to the generalissimo's power in Taiwan is well known. It is also well known that, thanks to the Cold War and American protection, father and son maintained a de facto separate state and imposed a harsh authoritarian rule on the island for about forty years. Yet Ching-kuo's controversial life remains a fascinating tale: Chiang Kai-shek's only son by a forsaken wife; early dabbling in communism as a young student in Russia; his patching up with his father after his return from the Soviet Union; his endless passion for attractive women and his futile efforts to save his father's Nationalist regime in Mainland China; the ruthlessness that helped the creation of the Chiang dynasty on Taiwan by eliminating potential enemies and suppressing political and intellectual freedom; collecting political capital by tirelessly visiting ordinary households to show his concern about people's well-being; the eventual willingness to loosen the reins of power in the final year of his life, when his health was rapidly deteriorating and pressures both domestic and foreign were mounting. All of this deserves telling. 1

The fast-moving democratization on Taiwan since Chiang Ching-kuo's death has inclined many to cherish his memory and remember him in a positive light. But those who sharply resent the forty years of the brutal Chiang regime, such as the intellectual Lee Ao, simply refuse to praise the last minute cleaning of a long dirty record. How should this man be judged by history? This central question makes a new study of the generalissimo's son fully justified. . . .

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