Dragon by the Tail by DAVIES, John Paton (John Paton Davies, Jr.) - (1974): American, British, Japanese, and Russian Encounters with China and One Another

Pp. 448. Index. Four pages of notes to text. Book condition is Fine with the exception of six pages featuring Bill Powell's yellow highlighting. With Powell's bookplate on the front pastedown. Inscribed by Davies in pen on the title page: "To an authentic China Hand, Bill Powell, with all good wishes John Paton Davies, Jr."

An exquisite association copy connecting two figures influential in the turmoil of post-WWII China. Both Americans were inextricably Sinophilic: Davies grew up in China, the son of American missionaries, and served as military attaché, along with Frank Dorn, to General Joseph Stillwell; John William Powell ("Bill") was the son of the publisher of the Shanghai-based, English-language China Weekly Review, for which he served as successive publisher. Both went afoul of the US State Department. Davies bore the brunt of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's witch-hunt query: "who lost China?" (Here, Davies asks whether China was ours to lose.) At the same time, Powell was charged with treason and then sedition for alleging that the US used bacterial warfare in the Korean War. Powell was eventually exonerated. Davies lost his State Dept. position; in 1969 he was issued a new security clearance.

Davies' account of China's tumultuous 20th C. begins with a 100 pp. dazzling, masterful geo-cultural history of China. Thence a detailed foray into the nuances of recent, uneasy transition from Empire to Republic to Warlord-Rule to KMT rule to Mao. Written with style and precision, Davies' primary-source narrative provides an entertaining and gripping view of China's dramatic evolution.