The Foreign Service Journal, November 2009

N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 19 Lewis Coolidge’s granddaughter, who first introduced her to his maritime diary. Also an Illinois native, John Phillip Felt served as an officer in the U.S. Navy and as a Foreign Service officer with the State Department. Now retired, he lives in Alexandria, Va. Troy, New York, and the Building of the USS Monitor Stephen H. Muller and Jennifer A. Taylor, Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway, 2009, $8.95, paperback, 35 pages. Wasting no space, this decep- tively slimmonograph on the first oceangoing U.S. iron- clad of the Civil War packs a great deal of information into its 35 pages. While focusing primarily on the rela- tionship between Troy industrialists John Griswold and John Winslow and Monitor designer John Ericsson that facilitated the warship’s construction, Muller and Taylor also explore the history of ironclad development, design and performance. In particular, they describe the Mon- itor ’s arch-nemesis, the CSS Virginia (better known as the ex-USS Merrimac ), and the standstill battle between the two behemoths at Hampton Roads in 1862. Muller’s special interest is in industrial, Civil War and local history, and he focuses on the central part that Troy, N.Y., and her industrialists played in supplying the iron plates for the ship’s hull and armor. Muller and Taylor’s work fills in the details of a monumental chap- ter of American history that is still a point of pride for Troy locals. Stephen Muller served in the Foreign Service as an economic officer for 26 years until his retirement in 2000. He moved to Troy in 2003, where he writes for several electric utility industry newsletters. To purchase this monograph, contact Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway, 1 East Industrial Drive, Troy NY 12190. The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-Shek and the Struggle for Modern China Jay Taylor, Harvard University Press, 2009, $35, hardcover, 736 pages. Conventional history has view- ed Chiang Kai-shek with consider- able disdain for his perceived ineptitude, corruption and, most importantly, his loss of mainland China to the communists. Recently released documents, however, including Chiang’s personal diary, have prompted a dra- matic re-evaluation of the man. Jay Taylor’s hefty biog- raphy boils down this wealth of new information into a nuanced, authoritative and often sympathetic account of Chiang’s struggles. After rising to power following the death of Sun Yat- sen in 1925, Chiang waged 20 years of constant war — first with warlords, then the Japanese and, finally, the Chinese Communists. Taylor reveals how Chiang, far from squandering aid and losing to a manageable insur- gency, heroically endured heavy losses only to face a fresh and consolidated enemy, resulting in his expulsion to Taiwan and international ridicule. Yet Chiang perse- vered, forging Taiwan into a wealthy nation and a model for Chinese democracy while the mainland underwent the Great Leap Forward. Taylor does not deny that these accomplishments were accompanied by substan- tial blunders and brutality, but the figure he presents is a complex, real man, not the two-dimensional scapegoat of popular accounts. Jay Taylor served as an FSO in Hong Kong during the Cultural Revolution. He is the author of five books, including The Generalissimo’s Son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the Revolutions in China and Taiwan (Harvard Uni- versity Press, 2000), and is a research associate at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard Uni- versity. The Impact of China and Russia on United States-Mongolian Political Relations in the Twentieth Century Alicia J. Campi and Ragchaa Baason, The Edwin Mellen Press, 2009, $139.95, hardcover, 572 pages. “This book is a much-needed contribution to the crit- ical area of Northeast Asian history — an account that has long been obscure,” declares China expert and Brigham Young University Professor Paul Hyer, adding that it “promises to be the definitive study on the topic.” Written by two former diplomats, this work is the first in-depth analysis of the political relationship between the United States and Mongolia. The study elucidates why, despite more than a hundred years of substantive interactions between the two countries, formal diplo- matic relations were not established until 1987. Begin- ning with the experiences of the earliest American officials, missionaries and adventurers in Mongolia, the account continues through secret meetings in Peking and Urga, the opening and subsequent closing of the