A Continent Erupts: Decolonization, Civil War, and Massacre in Postwar Asia, 1945–1955

Historian Spector (In the Ruins of Empire) examines in this authoritative and often enthralling account how East and Southeast Asia became “by far the most violent region of the globe” in the decade after WWII. Drawing on multilingual sources from China, Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere, Spector details how Allied leaders sought to reassert control over their prewar territories in massive military campaigns that were animated by Cold War rivalries and often devolved into savage civil wars between indigenous groups “who held vastly different visions of their nation’s postcolonial future.” This process began in September 1945, just weeks after Japan’s surrender, with the Dutch in Indonesia, the French in Indochina, Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists in China, and the Americans in Korea confronting local insurgencies empowered by the humiliating collapse of colonial regimes under Japanese attack. Spector provides comprehensive and captivating accounts of clashes less familiar to American readers, including the “Dutch Dien Bien Phu” in Java and the Chinese civil war’s Huaihai Campaign, which Mao Zedong called “China’s Gettysburg.” Vivid profiles of military and political leaders and luminous accounts of the French Foreign Legion versus the Viet Minh in Indochina and U.S. Marines against Chinese “volunteers” in Korea keep the pages turning, despite the wealth of detail. This sweeping survey of the bloody wages of decolonization astounds. (Aug.)