Peter Harmsen’s blog on the 1931-45 conflict and the birth of modern Asia
Behind every great literary epic, there are real, deeply human ghosts. For the internationally acclaimed Eurasian author and physician Han Suyin, that ghost was her first husband: General Tang Pao-huang. Continue Reading
In the autumn of 1943, the quiet, Quaker-hewn campus of Swarthmore College became an unexpected frontline for international military diplomacy. World War II was raging across two oceans, and the Continue Reading
In the autumn of 1944, John L. “Jack” Savage arrived in the rugged interior of wartime China to survey the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. As the chief designing Continue Reading
The cinematic landscape of wartime Hollywood was shaped by propaganda, patriotism, and a pressing need to tell stories of global conflict. Amidst this turbulent era, the 1942 film Lady from Continue Reading
If you picture the Japanese soldiers who fought in China and across the beaches of the Pacific, it is easy to imagine them as physically identical to modern Japanese people. Continue Reading
The photograph is quiet, almost unremarkable at first glance: a small group of men standing in the dust, horses waiting behind them, the light harsh and unforgiving. But at the Continue Reading
As 1937 slipped into 1938, Nanjing was a city living through catastrophe. Only weeks earlier, Japanese forces had captured the Chinese capital, unleashing what would become known as the Nanjing Continue Reading
Three years ago I shared this excerpt from my book Darkest Christmas, about how the holiday was marked in wartime China in 1942. Many readers told me it was one Continue Reading
In the fall and winter of 1937, the young American sailor Earl Jackson Clanton was in Shanghai on board the USS Augusta, which was keeping a vigil in the port while Continue Reading
In the fall of 1937, the young American sailor Earl Jackson Clanton was in Shanghai on board the USS Augusta, which was keeping a vigil in the port while Chinese and Continue Reading