| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.3 | The History Cooperative

Odd Arne Westad. Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946–1950. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2003. Pp. viii, 413. Cloth $65.00, paper $24.95.
Countering what has been conventional wisdom in China and in the West, Odd Arne Westad argues that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had by no means won over the countryside prior to the start of the civil war, and that the CCP victory was not a foregone conclusion until at least 1948. To substantiate this argument, Westad examines almost every imaginable cultural, political, social, economic, and military factor, from movies and student protests to peasant unrest and military armaments. Included in his splendidly reasoned book are discussions of the Korean War and of the Sino-Soviet relationship both before and immediately after 1949.	1
Westad makes the case that, had two key battles in the Northeast gone another way, the outcome of the civil war might have been different. Until the end, it was touch and go. The CCP had superior tactics and greater flexibility, but, in the end, the Communists won because the Guomindang (GMD) made a lot of bad decisions. Also critical to CCP success was the party's superb propaganda war. CCP operatives undermined the GMD's crumbling legitimacy and brought the Communist government an urban-educated cadre capable of staffing its new administration.	. . .

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