• DOI:10.1353/jmh.2006.0052
• Corpus ID: 161822140

The China-Japan War, 1931-1945

@article{Gordon2006TheCW,
  title={The China-Japan War, 1931-1945},
  author={David M. Gordon},
  journal={The Journal of Military History},
  year={2006},
  volume={70},
  pages={137 - 182}
}

• D. Gordon
• Published 9 January 2006
• History, Political Science
• The Journal of Military History

WAR, Sun Tzu tells us, “is of vital importance to the state, being the arena in which life or death is decided and the pathway to survival or ruination.” The Japanese invasion on 7 July 1937 put the Chinese Republic in mortal danger. In the end, the Republic prevailed. But China was devastated. The war also made possible a successful Communist revolution that destroyed traditional society. By 1945, Japan, too, was almost destroyed. Its empire lost and its political structure remade by its American conquerors, the country would eventually enter a new period of peaceful economic development. Both nations were fundamentally transformed by the conflict. The China-Japan war, the catalyst of these changes, is arguably the most important event in the history of East Asia in the twentieth century. This essay surveys much of the literature on that war, published since the 1970s, from its origins to its end.