But Taylor makes clear that the elder Chiang was encouraging changes made by his son.Īt the same time, Taylor, a former diplomat turned historian, does not ignore Chiang’s failings. Most of the credit for Taiwan’s democratization has gone over the years to Chiang’s son and successor Chiang Ching-kuo. I sympathized with opposition writers and politicians and was not inclined to look kindly on Chiang Kai-shek.īut relying on new materials, including Chiang’s diaries and interviews with key participants, Taylor reveals that Chiang was even then plotting dramatic economic and political reforms. They had to watch what they said or risk prison. Indeed, Taiwan in 1963-64 was a menacing place for journalists, critics, and opposition figures.

He also depicts in a mostly positive light Chiang’s performance during a quarter of a century in exile at the head of the Nationalist government on Taiwan, where he set the stage for the island’s shift from dictatorship to democracy.Īs a young wire service reporter visiting Taiwan in the early 1960s, I shared the standard view of Chiang as a rigid dictator who harbored delusional dreams of retaking the mainland.

Taylor shows in great detail that Chiang and his often-maligned troops fought more effectively against Japan’s heavily armed and well trained war machine than is generally realized. The author provides a fair and comprehensive assessment of the man who led China through a war of resistance against Japan and then a civil war that ended with his defeat at the hands of Mao Zedong in 1949. In a new biography, The Generalissimo, Jay Taylor sets the record straight. Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek stands condemned by many historians and journalists as a dictator lacking ideals and significant achievements.

The Generalissimo by Jay Taylor