The Ultimate Study Guide For Biology: Key Review Questions and Answers with Explanations (Topics: Evolution, Ecology, Kingdom Bacteria, Kingdom Protista, Kingdom Fungi & Viruses, Plant Form and Function) Volume 2
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  • This is an excellent study guide for Biology
The Ultimate Study Guide For Biology: Key Review Questions and Answers with Explanations (Topics: Evolution, Ecology, Kingdom Bacteria, Kingdom Protista, Kingdom Fungi & Viruses, Plant Form and Function) Volume 2
Patrick Leonardi
Manufacturer: Silver Educational Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1933023015

Book Description

This is the most specific and thorough study guide for college biology. It is written in an "easy to understand style." This test preparation study guide covers the following: Evolution, Ecology, Kingdom Bacteria, Kingdom Protista, Kingdom Fungi & Viruses, Plant Form and Function.

This is Volume 2 of a three volume series. Volume 1 covers Origin of Living Things & Chemistry of Life, Structure and Function of the Cell & Energy Pathways, Reproduction, Heredity and Genetics. Volume 3 covers Kingdom Animalia, Organization of the Animal Body, Animal Form and Function. In addition, Volume 3 also covers Animal Reproduction, Development and Behavior.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars This is an excellent study guide for Biology.......2004-10-10

This book was so helpful for my college classes, biology I and II. It had all the kind of questions that prepared me for the exams. The explanations were great and quite easy to read. I also used The Ultimate Study Guide for Biology: Key Review Questions and Answers with Explanations Volume 1 which coverd Organization of Living Things & Chemistry of Life, Structure and Function of the Cell and Energy Pathways, Reproduction and Heredity, Genetics. I also studied Volume 3 which had topics of Kingdom Animalia, Organization of the Animal Body, Animal Form and Function, Animal Reproduction, Development and Behavior. I must say these 3 books really did for me for helping me get excellent grades.
Anoxygenic Photosynthetic Bacteria (Advances in Photosynthesis and Respiration)
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    Anoxygenic Photosynthetic Bacteria (Advances in Photosynthesis and Respiration)
    R. E., Ed. Blankenship
    Manufacturer: Kluwer Academic Publishers
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

    GeneralGeneral | Science | Subjects | Books
    GeneralGeneral | Botany | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
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    ASIN: 0792336828

    Book Description

    Anoxygenic Photosynthetic Bacteria is a comprehensive volume describing all aspects of non-oxygen-evolving photosynthetic bacteria. The 62 chapters are organized into themes of: Taxonomy, physiology and ecology; Molecular structure of pigments and cofactors; Membrane and cell wall structure: Antenna structure and function; Reaction center structure and electron/proton pathways; Cyclic electron transfer; Metabolic processes; Genetics; Regulation of gene expression, and applications. The chapters have all been written by leading experts and present in detail the current understanding of these versatile microorganisms. The book is intended for use by advanced undergraduate and graduate students and senior researchers in the areas of microbiology, genetics, biochemistry, biophysics and biotechnology.
    Science Explorer from Bacteria to Plants (Prentice Hall science explorer)
    Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    • Great Book!!!!!!!!
    Science Explorer from Bacteria to Plants (Prentice Hall science explorer)

    Manufacturer: Pearson Prentice Hall
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover

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    ASIN: 0134344901

    Customer Reviews:

    5 out of 5 stars Great Book!!!!!!!!.......2002-05-09

    This was an excellent book to learn about plants. The authors of the book make everything clearer. I leaned many many things about plants!
    The Photosynthetic Bacteria
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      The Photosynthetic Bacteria

      Manufacturer: Springer
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Hardcover

      GeneralGeneral | Plants | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
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      MicrobiologyMicrobiology | Basic Science | Medicine | Subjects | Books
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      ASIN: 030631133X
      Phytobacteriology: Principles and Practice (Cabi Publishing)
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        Phytobacteriology: Principles and Practice (Cabi Publishing)
        J. D. Janse
        Manufacturer: CABI
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Hardcover

        GeneralGeneral | Plants | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
        GeneralGeneral | Botany | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
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        BacteriologyBacteriology | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
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        ASIN: 1845930258

        Book Description

        This book is a comprehensive manual of phytobacteriology and is heavily illustrated with over 200 color photographs and line illustrations. It starts by outlining the history and science of bacteriology and gives an overview of the diversity and versatility of complex bacteria. It goes on to
        explain characterization, identification, and naming of complex bacteria and how bacteria can cause disease and how plants react to this. It also discusses the economic importance of bacterial diseases and strategies for their control and reduction of crop losses. It concludes with 50 examples of
        well and lesser known plant pathogenic bacteria and the diseases that they cause.
        Plant-Associated Bacteria
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          Plant-Associated Bacteria
          Samuel S. Gnanamanickam
          Manufacturer: Springer
          ProductGroup: Book
          Binding: Hardcover

          GeneralGeneral | Science | Subjects | Books
          BacteriologyBacteriology | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
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          ASIN: 1402045360

          Book Description

          This volume is developed on the broad theme of plant-associated bacteria. It is envisioned as a resource volume for researchers working with beneficial and harmful groups of bacteria associated with crop plants. The book is divided into two parts. Part I (9 chapters) on beneficial bacteria includes chapters on symbiotic nitrogen fixers, diazotrophs, epiphytes, endophytes and rhizosphere bacteria and deleterious rhizobacteria. Part II (8 chapters) consists of detailed descriptions of 8 genera of plant pathogenic bacteria: Agrobacterium, Clavibacter, soft-rot Erwinia, Pseudomonas, Xanthomonas, Ralstonia, Burkholderia and Acidovorax and Herbaspirillum. There is an opening chapter on the plant-associated bacteria survey, molecular phylogeny, genomics and recent advances. And each chapter includes terminology/definitions, molecular phylogeny, methods that can be used (both traditional and latest molecular tools) and applications.
          Prentice Hall Science Explorer: From Bacteria to Plants
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            Michael J. Padilla , Ioannis Miaoulis , and Martha Cyr
            Manufacturer: Pearson Prentice Hall
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            Denitrification
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              Denitrification
              W. J. Payne
              Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons Inc
              ProductGroup: Book
              Binding: Hardcover

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              Prentice Hall Science Explorer: From Bacteria to Plants (Adapted Reading and Study Workbook)
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                Prentice Hall Science Explorer: From Bacteria to Plants (Adapted Reading and Study Workbook)
                Pearon Education
                Manufacturer: Pearson Prentice Hall
                ProductGroup: Book
                Binding: Paperback
                ASIN: 0131665391
                From Bacteria to Plants (Science Explorer)
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                  From Bacteria to Plants (Science Explorer)

                  Manufacturer: Pearson Publications Company
                  ProductGroup: Book
                  Binding: Paperback

                  Elementary SchoolElementary School | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books | General | Reading
                  Science & TechnologyScience & Technology | Specific Skills | Education | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
                  ASIN: 0131811193
                  Release Date: 2009-01-01

                  Product Description

                  Contains the pages of the student book, with teacher's information in the side and bottom margins.

                  Simply New Zealand: a Culinary Journey
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                    Simply New Zealand: a Culinary Journey

                    Manufacturer: New Holland Publishers (New Zealand) Ltd
                    ProductGroup: Book
                    Binding: Hardcover

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                    ASIN: 0908808755

                    Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost
                    Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
                    • Biography of a supreme martinet
                    • The Men Who Would Be King: The Chairman and the Generalissimo
                    • Important, Needed Addition to the Field of China Studies
                    • Highly Readable, Good Scholarship
                    • Just a clarification of one (or two?) of the reviewers
                    Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost
                    Jonathan Fenby
                    Manufacturer: Carroll & Graf
                    ProductGroup: Book
                    Binding: Paperback

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                    ASIN: 0786714840

                    Book Description

                    With a narrative as briskly paced and vividly detailed as an international thriller, this definitive biography of Chiang Kai-shek masterfully maps the tumultuous political career of Nationalist China’s generalissimo as it reevaluates his brave but unfulfilled life. Chiang Kai-shek was one of the most influential world figures of the twentieth century. The leader of the Kuomintang, the Nationalist movement in China, by 1928 he had established himself as head of the government in Nanking. But while he managed to survive the political storms of the 1930s, Chiang’s power was continually being undermined by the Japanese on one side and the Chinese Communists on the other. Drawing extensively on original Chinese sources and accounts by contemporaneous journalists, acclaimed author Jonathan Fenby explores little-known international connections in Chiang’s story as he unfolds a story as fascinating in its conspiratorial intrigues as it is remarkable for its psychological insights. This is the definitive biography of the man who, despite his best intentions, helped create modern-day China.

                    Customer Reviews:

                    5 out of 5 stars Biography of a supreme martinet.......2007-03-06

                    I started this book with minimal knowledge of China in the first half of the 20th century, beyond a knowledge of the key events. After reading Jonathan Fenby's magnus opus at 500 pages that gap in my knowledge has been very well filled. Using the life of Chiang Kai-Shek (CSK) up to his establishing of the National government in exile in Formosa (now Taiwanbthis book is an excellent coverage of the history of China to 1950, very well wrtitten and great command of many sources and consistent probing analysis of the issues and problems CSK and China faced.

                    The sub title of the book "And the China he lost" is the key - Fenby uses the life of CSK from humble beginnings to show that while he may have had a major impact in uniting post Manchu China, he consistently by personal failings and lack of realism to see himself as other than the divine national leader of China whose word was law and to delegate power, left it open to the eventual communist takeover under Mao, a man who operated a similar autocratic approach but was pragmatic enough to create the rural revolution needed.

                    The first half of Fenby's book is about CSK's success at overcoming the various regional warlords whose feudal approach to local power and unwillingness to accept central government reads like England in the Middle Ages. However while this may count as CSK's great success it
                    also showed many of the issues to come. CSK's military prowess was based on a mix of foreign military advisers (first Russian then German) and the use of bribery rather than personal military skills to often win victories. While making certain initial military reforms, CSK was unable to accept the wider need to invest in a high quality army relying on size and loyalty rather than skill and focus.

                    Having formed a loose regional federation, CSK then failed to seize the initiative to introduce much needed rural reform and instead aligned himself by marriage with corrupt urban wealthy families and launched a series of vicious attacks on the infant Communist party. His near success in eradicating the Communists was devastated by the Japanese invasion of China and the continual loss at great cost in lives of large and important areas of China to Japanese rule.

                    Even when presented with the golden opportunity of USA support post Pearl Harbour the opportunities were spurned due largely to CSK's nationalist attitude and lack of pragmatism and reality as to what was happening in China plus endless arguing with his US advisers who he saw threatening his authority. His endless meddling in military matters by issuing numerous orders when he was far from the front or executing a sound strategy plus the increasing corruption of his close followers meant that the Japanese were not pushed back and the Communists were able to survive and prosper.

                    With the end of WWII, CSK again took a gamble in the hope of playing off Russia and USA influences under the Cold War to survive but underestimated their lack of support based on his WWII performance - once his armies had to face down the communists his poor military skills became clear and the end was quick. Consistent to the end he ensured a retreat to exile in
                    Formosa with troops and gold leaving Chian to its fate but only after wreaking his final vengeance in murdering Chinese allies whohe felt had betrayed him.

                    One finishes the book clear that whill CSK may have had a major impact on China it came at a great cost and with little real chance of long term success given his inability to react correctly to changes in Chinese society and economy and foreign forces.

                    5 out of 5 stars The Men Who Would Be King: The Chairman and the Generalissimo.......2007-01-31

                    Short, Philip (1999) Mao: A Life (Holt: New York)

                    Fenby, Jonathan (2003) Chiang Kai-Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost (Carroll & Graf: New York).

                    On October 1, 1949 Chairman Mao Zedong stood at the Gate of Heavenly Peace and declared the founding of the People's Republic of China. He told the assembled crowd, "We, the 475 million Chinese people have stood up and our future is infinitely bright." He further continued "The Chinese people have stood up." Two months the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) achieved later final victory. The leader of the Kuomintang (KMT), Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, fled with his party to the Chinese provincial island of Taiwan. That day was the endgame of a battle that began twenty-two years earlier during the 1927 Autumn Harvest Uprising in Hunan.
                    Both Mao and Chiang are synonymous with the history of modern China. Both men came from similar backgrounds, had similar strategies and similar visions for China. Each man came from humble origins - Chiang the son of a salt merchant and Mao the son of a well off peasant. Mao and Chiang also sought to remake China as a modern nation within the world of nation-states. On more than one occasion each man was willing to use the other for their own struggle within their respective parties. To a degree, they were peas in a pod in modern China.
                    The capturing of these complicated men in their pod has been a complicated process for most writers. Many writers are trapped in their internal politics to capture the true person behind the images. Mao and Chiang both have had devoted followers and devote detractors who were more than willing to take a blind eye to things both good and bad done by these men.
                    Short and Fenby, however, do not. These two biographies are both extremely objective and sound. Mao is seen as the terrible dictator that he was. "His rule brought about the deaths of more of his own people than any other leader in history." Short admires Mao as being the man "who wrenched China from it medieval torpor and forced it into the contours of a modern nation."
                    Fenby, meanwhile, is equally objective in his assessment of the Generalissimo. Chiang's regime, both on the Mainland and on Taiwan, was not the thriving democracy it is even though of in the west. But in fact, it was a authoritarian one "organized on Leninist lines with a repressive internal security apparatus." Yet in the wake of three decades of horrid revolution, "Chiang and his era become less of the nightmare painted after the Communist victory."
                    Without Mao or Chiang China would probably still be the semi-colonial backwater it was when they were born in the late nineteenth century. Both men helped to unmake the old feudalist China ran for the betterment of Qing Dynasty and laid the groundwork for the extreme economic growth both on the Mainland and on Taiwan. Each Short and Fenby attempt to capture these two complicated men who will dominate the pages of history for centuries to come. Each is a fantastic read about the two men who would be king.

                    4 out of 5 stars Important, Needed Addition to the Field of China Studies.......2005-11-11

                    This important book fills a glaring void that exists in the historical record of modern China. While historians have always provided ready attention to Mao Zedong and communist China, they never accorded the same serious examination to the role and legacy of Chiang Kai-shek. Before this book, most of the resources on Chiang dated from the 1970s and earlier, largely consisting of hagiographic accounts penned by pro-KMT Chinese living in Taiwan or abroad, or similar propaganda fluff pieces financed by the Henry Luce China Lobby. A well-reasoned, independent account of Chiang's life was thus long overdue, and Fenby comes through in a huge way.

                    He writes an engaging narrative of Chiang, a person of quite humble origins, who became one of the world's most famous and powerful figures. Fenby also provides detailed, careful background on the China of Chiang's time, particularly that of the 1911 Revolution and subsequent warlord period. This is important in understanding why Chiang allied with the types of people and strata of society that he did, and why this alliance alienated vast numbers of Chinese, providing moral fodder and legitimacy for the alternative offered by Mao. Much of Fenby's information regarding Chiang's early political career comes from an autobiography written by his largely-forgotten second wife, Chen Jieru (Jennie). While this relationship is common knowledge in Taiwan, she is practically unknown in the west. Her book is entitled Chiang Kai-shek's Secret Past, and what Fenby was able to glean from it has whetted my appetite to read the book myself.

                    Fenby is at his best when he examines the decades-long struggle for control of China between Chiang and Mao. Indeed, theirs was a clash of legendary, tragic proportions, and it is hard to find a more riveting story elsewhere in history, not just because of the mythic stature and personal auras these two men obtained during their own lifetimes, but also due to the enormous cruelty and unimaginable suffering both inflicted on the country they would rule and the populace they would win to their cause. Chapter 15, "The Long Chase" opens with a brilliant juxtaposition between the two, and proceeds to analyze the showdown during the Long March in which Mao gained primacy in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the CCP escaped certain extinction during Chiang's Fifth Extermination Campaign in Jiangxi. He attributes the CCP's success in escaping to Yan'an, not as the result of a secret deal Chiang brokered with Moscow to guarantee the return of his son Chiang Ching-kuo, as argued by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday in their biography of Mao, but to the superior strategy of Mao and Zhu De: they planned the route through areas of the country largely held by warlords who often actively assisted the Red Army in getting through their territories, or gave passive half-hearted chase, because the last thing they wanted was Chiang coming in with his huge armies and wresting political control away from them.

                    The book does have two important weaknesses, one minor and one major. First, Fenby provides little insight into what I think would be one of the most important and intriguing relationships of Chiang's life, that with his son Chiang Ching-kuo. Ching-kuo, after all, publicly denounced his father after the 1927 White Terror purges in Shanghai and Guangzhou, and attempted to join the Communist Party while living in the USSR. However, Fenby spends hardly any time at all with them. Considering the role that Ching-kuo played later in the democratization of Taiwan, this is unfortunate.

                    Fenby devotes three chapters and 65 pages to the stormy relationship between General Joseph Stilwell and Chiang Kai-shek. It is in his negative assessment of General Stilwell where his normally astute and deft powers of analysis fail him when he needs them most. It is not my desire here to delve too deeply into Stilwell's legacy or become embroiled in the Stilwell vs. Claire Chennault debate, but as Fenby comes perilously close to maligning Stilwell's military competence, I feel I must come to his defense, because for all his faults, General Stilwell was truly a great American and a first-rate military mind. He earned the trust and respect of the highest leadership in the US military and received promotion over those much senior to him, at the insistence of no less than Marshall and Eisenhower, two of the finest generals America has ever produced.

                    When describing Stilwell's march of his command out of Burma into India, an epic journey of over 150 miles taken under extreme conditions and threat of imminent discovery by the Japanese imperial army, Fenby terms it a `grave dereliction of duty', because he argues that Stilwell should have stayed behind to organize the retreat of other Chinese units in the theater. It is important to realize the true situation: the Japanese had put the Allies to rout. Commands and units had completely disintegrated by this point. Indeed, Fenby notes just a few pages earlier that before the main Japanese advance had even begun, Chinese commanders refused to obey Stilwell's orders (almost certainly under instructions from Chiang) and rather than send needed supplies and materiel to units on the front lines, Chinese commanders were hoarding these and trucking them back to China to sell on the black market. Once the Japanese began their assault, there was soon no `retreat' left for Stilwell to organize. In this case, he did what duty required of him: save his personal command. This he accomplished admirably: not one of the persons in his care perished or fell into Japanese hands.

                    Fenby seems to have bought into Chennault's air-intensive strategy as the way to defeat the Japanese in China, yet he never does manage to explain how air power can be the decisive factor when there is no means to defend air bases with no adequate ground support, and there would be insufficient supply lines for fuel and parts without ground troops defending the major supply routes from India. These were Stilwell's main arguments as to the necessity to win back Burma. Fenby overstates the effectiveness of Chennault's air battles, not surprising since his sources on this come only from autobiographies by Chennault himself and one of his men. This is a disappointing lapse of scrutiny by Fenby.

                    It is also important to note that on practically every point concerning Chiang, his military ineffectiveness and strategic incompetence, his regime, the venal corruption of the KMT and its likelihood of success in a civil war against the CCP, subsequent events proved General Stilwell correct, and Chennault, Henry Luce and countless others wrong. In fact, Fenby even quotes Chennault as absurdly saying that "I think the Generalissimo is one of the two or three greatest military and political leaders in the world today."

                    Notwithstanding these faults, Fenby gets the big picture right. His depiction of China's domestic situation and the political machinations of the KMT and CCP is compelling, absorbing history. He is fair-handed in his treatment to both sides, and is horribly effective in revealing the brutality of the Japanese occupation. Fenby manages to present a sympathetic portrait of Chiang, at his heart a true nationalist and personally incorruptible, but a man too bound by his steeply conservative Confucian tradition, enamored with fascism, and blind to the corruption of his family and associates, to ever have a hope of realizing his ultimate ambition.

                    4 out of 5 stars Highly Readable, Good Scholarship.......2005-11-11

                    This important book fills a glaring void that exists in the historical record of modern China. While historians have always provided ready attention to Mao Zedong and communist China, they never accorded the same serious examination to the role and legacy of Chiang Kai-shek. Before this book, most of the resources on Chiang dated from the 1970s and earlier, largely consisting of hagiographic accounts penned by pro-KMT Chinese living in Taiwan or abroad, or similar propaganda fluff pieces financed by the Henry Luce China Lobby. A well-reasoned, independent account of Chiang's life was thus long overdue, and Fenby comes through in a huge way.

                    He writes an engaging narrative of Chiang, a person of quite humble origins, who became one of the world's most famous and powerful figures. Fenby also provides detailed, careful background on the China of Chiang's time, particularly that of the 1911 Revolution and subsequent warlord period. This is important in understanding why Chiang allied with the types of people and strata of society that he did, and why this alliance alienated vast numbers of Chinese, providing moral fodder and legitimacy for the alternative offered by Mao. Much of Fenby's information regarding Chiang's early political career comes from an autobiography written by his largely-forgotten second wife, Chen Jieru (Jennie). While this relationship is common knowledge in Taiwan, she is practically unknown in the west. Her book is entitled Chiang Kai-shek's Secret Past, and what Fenby was able to glean from it has whetted my appetite to read the book myself.

                    Fenby is at his best when he examines the decades-long struggle for control of China between Chiang and Mao. Indeed, theirs was a clash of legendary, tragic proportions, and it is hard to find a more riveting story elsewhere in history, not just because of the mythic stature and personal auras these two men obtained during their own lifetimes, but also due to the enormous cruelty and unimaginable suffering both inflicted on the country they would rule and the populace they would win to their cause. Chapter 15, "The Long Chase" opens with a brilliant juxtaposition between the two, and proceeds to analyze the showdown during the Long March in which Mao gained primacy in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the CCP escaped certain extinction during Chiang's Fifth Extermination Campaign in Jiangxi. He attributes the CCP's success in escaping to Yan'an, not as the result of a secret deal Chiang brokered with Moscow to guarantee the return of his son Chiang Ching-kuo, as argued by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday in their biography of Mao, but to the superior strategy of Mao and Zhu De: they planned the route through areas of the country largely held by warlords who often actively assisted the Red Army in getting through their territories, or gave passive half-hearted chase, because the last thing they wanted was Chiang coming in with his huge armies and wresting political control away from them.

                    The book does have two important weaknesses, one minor and one major. First, Fenby provides little insight into what I think would be one of the most important and intriguing relationships of Chiang's life, that with his son Chiang Ching-kuo. Ching-kuo, after all, publicly denounced his father after the 1927 White Terror purges in Shanghai and Guangzhou, and attempted to join the Communist Party while living in the USSR. However, Fenby spends hardly any time at all with them. Considering the role that Ching-kuo played later in the democratization of Taiwan, this is unfortunate.

                    Fenby devotes three chapters and 65 pages to the stormy relationship between General Joseph Stilwell and Chiang Kai-shek. It is in his negative assessment of General Stilwell where his normally astute and deft powers of analysis fail him when he needs them most. It is not my desire here to delve too deeply into Stilwell's legacy or become embroiled in the Stilwell vs. Claire Chennault debate, but as Fenby comes perilously close to maligning Stilwell's military competence, I feel I must come to his defense, because for all his faults, General Stilwell was truly a great American and a first-rate military mind. He earned the trust and respect of the highest leadership in the US military and received promotion over those much senior to him, at the insistence of no less than Marshall and Eisenhower, two of the finest generals America has ever produced.

                    When describing Stilwell's march of his command out of Burma into India, an epic journey of over 150 miles taken under extreme conditions and threat of imminent discovery by the Japanese imperial army, Fenby terms it a `grave dereliction of duty', because he argues that Stilwell should have stayed behind to organize the retreat of other Chinese units in the theater. It is important to realize the true situation: the Japanese had put the Allies to rout. Commands and units had completely disintegrated by this point. Indeed, Fenby notes just a few pages earlier that before the main Japanese advance had even begun, Chinese commanders refused to obey Stilwell's orders (almost certainly under instructions from Chiang) and rather than send needed supplies and materiel to units on the front lines, Chinese commanders were hoarding these and trucking them back to China to sell on the black market. Once the Japanese began their assault, there was soon no `retreat' left for Stilwell to organize. In this case, he did what duty required of him: save his personal command. This he accomplished admirably: not one of the persons in his care perished or fell into Japanese hands.

                    Fenby seems to have bought into Chennault's air-intensive strategy as the way to defeat the Japanese in China, yet he never does manage to explain how air power can be the decisive factor when there is no means to defend air bases with no adequate ground support, and there would be insufficient supply lines for fuel and parts without ground troops defending the major supply routes from India. These were Stilwell's main arguments as to the necessity to win back Burma. Fenby overstates the effectiveness of Chennault's air battles, not surprising since his sources on this come only from autobiographies by Chennault himself and one of his men. This is a disappointing lapse of scrutiny by Fenby.

                    It is also important to note that on practically every point concerning Chiang, his military ineffectiveness and strategic incompetence, his regime, the venal corruption of the KMT and its likelihood of success in a civil war against the CCP, subsequent events proved General Stilwell correct, and Chennault, Henry Luce and countless others wrong. In fact, Fenby even quotes Chennault as absurdly saying that "I think the Generalissimo is one of the two or three greatest military and political leaders in the world today."

                    Notwithstanding these faults, Fenby gets the big picture right. His depiction of China's domestic situation and the political machinations of the KMT and CCP is compelling, absorbing history. He is fair-handed in his treatment to both sides, and is horribly effective in revealing the brutality of the Japanese occupation. Fenby manages to present a sympathetic portrait of Chiang, at his heart a true nationalist and personally incorruptible, but a man too bound by his steeply conservative Confucian tradition, enamored with fascism, and blind to the corruption of his family and associates, to ever have a hope of realizing his ultimate ambition.

                    4 out of 5 stars Just a clarification of one (or two?) of the reviewers.......2005-10-07

                    I am confused by one of the reviewers, Niels De Groot (supposedly real name). The review of Niels De Groot from Switzerland gave this paperback book a 5 star. The review (dated January 24, 2005) of Niels De Groot from Key Biscayne FL for the hardcover book, (his review titled "Mainly an Assembly of Newspaper Clippings) gave the book 2 stars. Are you two different persons?

                    By the way, I read the hardcover book. The history of modern China, especially those written by Chinese, are somehow tainted with lack of credibility, as they tend to serve the bias of either the Communist or the Nationalist side. So one cannot know what is really the truth. Mr. Fenby's book comes out with depth and evenhandedness in detail with the attempt to get to the truth as much as possible and avoiding to serve a particular political point of view. It is refreshing to read a biography of a contemporary Chinese figure without either the hate mongering or the idolization so prevalent even until now.
                    Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost
                    Average customer rating: Not rated
                      Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost
                      Jonathan Fenby
                      Manufacturer: Carroll & Graf
                      ProductGroup: Book
                      Binding: Paperback
                      ASIN: B000QYFW76

                      Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness
                      Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
                      • This is a powerful book
                      • This book has stayed with me for years
                      • Touched by John Hull
                      • Moving memoir
                      • A stunning picture of what it is like to become blind
                      Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness
                      John M. Hull
                      Manufacturer: Vintage
                      ProductGroup: Book
                      Binding: Paperback

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                      Similar Items:
                      1. Sight Unseen Sight Unseen
                      2. Planet of the Blind Planet of the Blind
                      3. On Sight and Insight: A Journey into the World of Blindness On Sight and Insight: A Journey into the World of Blindness
                      4. My Path Leads to Tibet: The Inspiring Story of How One Young Blind Woman Brought Hope to the Blind Children of Tibet My Path Leads to Tibet: The Inspiring Story of How One Young Blind Woman Brought Hope to the Blind Children of Tibet
                      5. Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening

                      ASIN: 067973547X
                      Release Date: 1992-06-02

                      Book Description

                      Shortly after John Hull went blind, after years of struggling with failing vision, he had a dream in which he was trapped on a sinking ship, submerging into another, unimaginable world. The power of this calmly eloquent, intensely perceptive memoir lies in its thorough navigation of the world of blindness -- a world in which stairs are safe and snow is frightening, where food and sex lose much of their allure and playing with one's child may be agonizingly difficult. As he describes the ways in which blindness shapes his experience of his wife and children, of strangers helpful and hostile, and, above all, of his God, Hull becomes a witness in the highest, true sense. Touching the Rock is a book that will instruct, move, and profoundly transform anyone who reads it.

                      "John Hull goes a long way toward taking us with him through his descent into total blindness...He lets us see with no trace of self-pity or self-praise how blindness has become far him a genuine acquisition, an unforeseeably rich gift that has made of him what so few of us are: excellent watchers and hearers of the world...triumphant in the teeth of ruin". -- Reynolds Price

                      Customer Reviews:

                      5 out of 5 stars This is a powerful book.......2007-08-08

                      I can't remember ever reading anything quite as compelling. I'm not going blind nor do I have any cognitive disabilities. However, if you are a practicing meditator as I am and are interested in the nature of consciousness itself, you will be quite intrigued with this highly descriptive account of both the visual and non-visual aspects of perception. If this book doesn't inspire you to start thinking outside the box, nothing will. That been said, the average reader will find this to be an unforgettable, beautifully written book well worth reading. Highly recommended.

                      5 out of 5 stars This book has stayed with me for years.......2007-05-26

                      In place of the word "unsentimental" often used to describe this book I'd use "Lynchian", as in David. Blindness is just the starting-off point: The book is really a luxuriant journey into the *other* four senses and the heightened reality one begins to feel -- for instance how the white noise of a sudden rain can throw your outdoor echolocation into turmoil and immobilize you at some random place. With all respect to anyone looking for a good book on the disability, this one is for the artists.

                      5 out of 5 stars Touched by John Hull.......2005-09-04

                      On the front cover Oliver Sacks is quoted: "Staggering. . . the most extraordinary, precise, deep, and beautiful account of blindness I have ever read." But this book is primarily a message of facing change and developing methods for coping. Of compensating, of reaching out, of accepting your plight and going forward. You sense the author's despair and frustration, but he manages to see his difficulties as challenges. He engages you in the struggles he faces and overcomes. After all, he has a wife and four children, he lectures and attends conferences. Perhaps the most fascinating chapter of all, for me, was how he faced giving a lecture when he could no longer read notes. He eventually learned how to write his speech in his mind so that he could simply read one page as the next ones were being formulated. I pictured it as something like the beginning of a Star Wars movie. John Hull has somelthing to teach us all.

                      5 out of 5 stars Moving memoir.......2002-10-21

                      Heard the taped version of TOUCHING THE ROCK by John
                      Hull, a moving memoir of a university lecturer who slowly
                      lost his vision over a period of several years . . . he recorded
                      his thoughts in a diary, and I must admit to being touched
                      about how both he and his family dealt with his
                      condition . . . even typing this brings teary thoughts to
                      mind . . . imagine having seen a child as a youngster,
                      then not being able to see her again as she grows up . . . or
                      never having seen another child from the time he was
                      born . . . it makes me want to hug my daughter, Risa . . . and
                      to appreciate all that I do have!

                      5 out of 5 stars A stunning picture of what it is like to become blind.......2002-01-20

                      This book was given to me as a gift a few years ago, and while I am neither going blind nor am actually blind, I found many of the ideas and experiences and thoughts and feelings expressed in this book to be very similar to my own. I have some particular cognitive difficulties (prosopagnosia, often called "face blindness") which give me a rather different outlook on life from most people, and I was amazed to see just how much in common my outlook on life was when compared with the author's life experiences. Well, maybe I wasn't that surprized, but it was still an eye-opening (no pun intended) experience for me to read this book in that context.

                      Needless to say, I enjoyed this book very very much. It reads more like a personal journal or diary than an actual book, and that gives the whole book a very personal experience when reading it.
                      Touching the Rock, an Experience of Blindness
                      Average customer rating: Not rated
                        Touching the Rock, an Experience of Blindness
                        John Hull
                        Manufacturer: Pantheon Books
                        ProductGroup: Book
                        Binding: Hardcover
                        ASIN: B000PAXAAW
                        TOUCHING THE ROCK:AN EXPERIENCE OF BLINDNESS
                        Average customer rating: Not rated
                          TOUCHING THE ROCK:AN EXPERIENCE OF BLINDNESS

                          Manufacturer: Pantheon NY
                          ProductGroup: Book
                          Binding: Hardcover
                          ASIN: B000IBA0F6

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