The Mandate Of Heaven

Record of a civil war: China 1945-49 by John F. Melby
Photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson

On November 1, 1948, the United States issued evacuation orders for all Americans remaining in north China. With those orders effectively ended an American involvement in Chinese affairs that had gradually intensified over a period of decades, culminating in the Marshall Mission of 1946-47 and the ambassadorship of John Leighton Stuart, 1947-49, during which the last feverish attempts were made to bring about a coalition between the warring Kuomintang and Communist factions. The story of those crucial years is told with unprecedented immediacy in this unusual book. The result is a work of extraordinary interest and importance, a pioneering history of the period and a powerful and sensitive record of day-to-day events, political and personal. During his service with the American Embassy in China in the late forties, John Melby recorded his experiences in notes that, twenty years later, may well stand among the most remarkable political diaries of our times. Their significance lies in their inclusiveness. For the revolution in China was not composed wholly of military and diplomatic affairs, or of the ambitions of powerful men. It was and is also a product of Chinese ways and the facts of Chinese life: coolies and scholar-aristocrats, rice wine and ancient gods, steaming cities and boatloads of human excrement. These details, as well as the author's reactions to the dominant personalities of the time, give the narrative a presence and vividness that no relation of disembodied facts can have. The diary has been complemented with a series of historical commentaries that round out the period and lend the perspective of twenty years' hind- sight. The introduction acquaints the general reader with the outlines of China's momentous history.