Friday, March 1, 2024
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM ET
Lindner Family Commons Room 602
Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E Street NW Washington, D.C. 20052
When World War II ended Chiang Kai-shek seemed at the height of his power-the leader of Nationalist China, one of the victorious Allied Powers in 1945 and with the financial backing of the US. Yet less than four years later, he lost the China’s civil war against the communists. Offering an insightful chronological treatment of the years 1944–1949, Parks Coble addresses why Chiang was unable to win the war and control hyperinflation. Using newly available archival sources, he reveals the critical weakness of Chiang’s style of governing, the fundamental structural flaws in the Nationalist government, bitter personal rivalries and Chiang’s personal lack of interest in finance. This major work of revisionist scholarship will engage all those interested in the shaping of twentieth-century history.
Join the Sigur Center as we discuss this monumental work of scholarship with history Parks M. Coble. RSVP today!
Speaker
Parks M. Coble is the James S. Sellers Professor of History, having joined the department in August 1976. He teaches surveys of general East Asian history, covering China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, and specialized courses on modern China and Japan.
Parks Coble’s research field is 20th century China with special emphasis on the political history of Republican China (1911-1949), the history of Chinese business in the 20th century, and Sino-Japanese interactions. Recent publications have included a study of Chinese businessmen living in occupied China during World War II, and of the anti-Japanese movement in China in the 1930s. His current project examines the collapse of the Chiang Kai-shek government in China in 1949 by analyzing the tragic consequences of hyperinflation in China during the period from 1944 until 1949. The Japanese conquest of East China had isolated the Chiang stronghold in the interior and left the Chinese government with few financial resources. Chiang chose to simply print money which lead to disastrous consequences. After Japanese surrender there was no “peace dividend” so the erosion of the currency simply accelerated. New archival sources permit an in depth analysis of the decision making process within Chiang’s government.
Moderator
Edward A. McCord is Professor of History and International Affairs at The George Washington University, specializing in Chinese history. He is the author of The Power of the Gun: The Emergence of Modern Chinese Warlordism (University of California Press) and Military Force and Elite Power in the Making of Modern China (Routhledge). He has published numerous articles, focusing mainly on the role and impact of the military in modern Chinese society, in journals such as Modern China, Twentieth-Century China, and Modern Asian Studies. Besides teaching graduate and undergraduate students in modern and pre-modern Chinese history at The George Washington University, Professor McCord lectures frequently on Chinese history at the Foreign Service Institute and the Smithsonian Institution’s Campus on the Mall program. He is also a member of the editorial board of Modern China.
Professor McCord received his Ph.D. in Chinese history from the University of Michigan in 1985. Following a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California-Berkeley, he was an assistant professor of history at the University of Florida in Gainesville Florida, where he received several awards for undergraduate teaching. In 1994 he moved to The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., as an associate professor, also serving as Director of the University’s East Asian Studies Program. In the period from January 1998 to June 2006 he served successively as the Associate Dean for Students and Curriculum, Faculty and Research, Faculty and Student Affairs, and Senior Associate Dean for Management and Planning for GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He is also the founder and Director of the Elliott School’s Taiwan Education and Research Program. From September 2011 to June 2014, he served as the Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies.
