Sterling Seagrave (1937–2017)

The history of the Japanese royal family may theoretically span back more centuries than I could probably count but their modern history, and where the Seaburgs begin their coverage, starts following the fall of the Shoguns in the nineteenth century. While Yamato Dynasty covers the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, most of its pages focus on the period leading up to World War II, and the surprisingly significant role Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese Royal Family played in the militarisation of Japan and the road to World War II.

The Seaburgs cover how Hirohito could be so central in developing the imperial Japanese war machine and yet come out of World War II with his crown intact when so many other royals lost theirs.… (más)

After World War I, bush pilots, taking advantage of the glut of surplus warplanes and service-trained pilots, flew over unmapped terrain without radios or weather reports. They were tough and independent . . . and a lifeline to the outside for miners, trappers, missionaries, and others far from civilization. They flew in the Outback, in New Guinea; they flew north to the frozen wilderness, south to Latin America. And during World War II at bases in places such as Nome, Alaska, they were the only fliers skilled enough to land when the ceiling was less than two hundred feet and the visibility was less than a quarter of a mile.

Here are the stories of aviators such as Harold Gillam, one of Alaska’s first bush pilots. Gillam and fellow bush pilot Ben Eielson were the first men to cross the Arctic Ocean by air. But the flying was treacherous, often claiming the pilots in a deadly crash. Nevertheless, these dedicated pilots persevered, driven by the needs of others and their own insatiable passion for flying.

Filled with photographs of the pilots and the planes, “The Bush Pilots,” part of The Epic of Flight series, tells the stories of these brave pilots and their daring exploits. Readers interested in the achievements of early aviators and the evolution of aviation will find much to appreciate here.

Recommended.… (más)

Thoroughly researched, a real page-turner on a topic of great importance. Top notch!

The Soong family is a wonderful key hole through which to observe US-China relations from 1880 to 1950 or so. One Soong sister married Sun Yat-sen, one married Chiang Kai-shek. It's definitely a case of truth being stranger than fiction. Sun Yat-sen was a bumbler, Chiang Kai-shek was a schemer. Between the unplanned catastrophes and the planned catastrophes, how anybody survives seems almost a miracle.

The truly frightening part is how the behavior patterns in this book resemble our times these days. Politics and corruption are pretty much the same in all times and places. The gruesome details uncovered in this book would have been known by very few people on the actual scene. Ach, though I remember in the early 1980s when repression was alive and well in Taiwan. I remember a Taiwanese professor getting thrown off a balcony in Pittsburgh - the long arm of the KMT secret police. But how vast money flows into vast propaganda.... what goes on now, with the internet and social media.... this insanity is not just a thing of the past!… (más)

Author Sterling Seagrave was an “investigative journalist” who grew up in Burma (before it was Myanmar). “Investigative journalist” puts my back up, as they always seem to be selling a story rather than actually investigating anything. In Dragon Lady, Seagrave is in fact selling a story, but the documentation he provides suggests the story is one I will buy.

Although the ostensible subject is Tzu Hsi, known in the West as the “Dowager Empress”, Seagrave’s story actually concerns the history of relations between China and the West in the 19th and early 20th century, mythbusting as he goes. His basic theme is the Western powers treated China with profound injustice; but the Chinese themselves (including the last rulers, the Qing Dynasty, who were Manchu and not ethnic Chinese) contributed by being hopelessly corrupt. The injustice theme gets off to a rousing start with Seagrave’s explication of the Opium Wars; I think everybody agrees these were one of the more sordid acts in Western history so no further “mythbusting” is necessary. Now that he’s got his stride, Seagrave continues with the Taiping Rebellion. Here my own myths get busted; my previous impression was the Taiping Rebellion was stopped by “Chinese” Gordon and his “Ever-Victorious Army”; however Seagrave argues that the “Ever-Victorious Army” was ineffectual and the rebellion was broken by the Chinese themselves.

Interspersed with these accounts, Seagrave follows the career of Tzu Hsi. Since actual documentation of her life is so scanty, Seagrave discusses general aspects of court life. This was extremely constrained and ritualized, with the imperial diet, activities, and sex life all subject to precise protocol. Tzu Hsi eventually becomes the “Dowager Empress” to her son, the Emperor Kuang Hsu. Keeping track of what’s going on gets very complicated; there are multiple factions – both Manchu and ethnic Chinese – in the Qing government; the most prominent was the “Ironhats”; conservative Manchu who wanted foreigners expelled. Eventually a popular anti-Christian and anti-foreign movement, the “Boxers”, arises, leading to the “Boxer Rebellion”.

Seagrave jumps on conventional wisdom about the Boxer rebellion with both feet. That story is generally that the Dowager Empress was an evil woman who controlled the Chinese government; that the Boxers were controlled by the Empress and sent to attack foreigners; that the various legations held out bravely against the Boxers and organized Chinese troops until help arrived. Seagrave sorts through what documentation is available and presents the following:

• Very few of the Western diplomats and news reporters in China spoke Chinese; therefore they were dependent on various informants, Western or Chinese, who did.
• The informants had interests of their own; ethnic Chinese wanted to overthrow the Manchu dynasty and Manchu wanted to strengthen their own positions and adjusted the information they gave westerners accordingly.
• One of the Chinese-speaking westerners, Edmund Backhouse, perpetrated fraud on a high level, claiming to have access to various Chinese sources, including the diary of a high Qing official. Backhouse also claimed to have had sexual affairs with many prominent men and women, both western and Chinese, and documented these in his memoirs; he was instrumental in convincing various contacts that the Empress was sort of an evil eminence; these contacts passed that appreciation on to their governments and newspapers.
• The events leading to the “Boxer Rebellion” were largely fomented by westerners. The rumor that a “rebellion” was in the offing reached the embassies long before anything actually happened; embassy personal were involved in some unprovoked shootings of Chinese under the pretext that they were “Boxers”. The actual siege of the legation quarter was undramatic; embassy personnel were never in any danger, the Chinese never made an organized attack, casualties were caused by stray bullets or ricochets, and the relief expedition was poorly managed.
• The Chinese military had the capability to take the legations, but the Chinese commanders involved were hedging their bets, trying to preserve relations with the west and preserve their military units for possible internecine conflict later.
• The Dowager Empress was never in control of anything; she was essentially a prisoner in the palace, under control of various ministerial factions in the Chinese government. Edicts and instructions supposedly issued by her actually came from her ministers.
• The western powers took advantage of the event (just as they had in the aftermath of the Opium Wars) to engage in large scale looting.
• Although most of the events that would qualify as “atrocities” were perpetrated on Chinese by the west, there was a wholesale slaughter of missionaries – including wives and children – in one Chinese province.

One of the results of the “rebellion” was western insistence on more access to the imperial government; as a result some western women – diplomat’s wives and daughters – met with the Dowager Empress and Emperor. They generally reported she was amiable and pleasant. They were denounced as “stupid” and “deceived” by those who had an interest in defaming the Empress Dowager.
Seagrave presents his case in a convincing fashion; he has access to a lot of documentation, both western and Chinese, backing his arguments. However, I’m always a little suspect of journalists writing histories, and there’s one little comment – in an endnote – that makes me uneasy. In discussing an abortive attempt to reform the Chinese government from the top down – the “Hundred Days”- Seagrave says the following:

“…after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson immediately rescinded most of Kennedy’s radical foreign policy initiatives, including moves to reach détente with Russia and Cuba and to withdraw all U.S. troops from Vietnam. There are many interesting parallels between the two palace coups.”

The apparent assertion that the Kennedy assassination was a “palace coup” calls into question all of Seagrave’s case. If he’s fallen off the edge into conspiracy theory in this case, there’s no reason to believe any of the rest is reliable, no matter how logically it’s presented.

That being said, this is worthwhile as an alternative to the “conventional wisdom” on Chinese history of the period. Extensive references and bibliography; endnotes, useful maps.… (más)