From the acclaimed author of Enduring Patagonia comes a dazzling tale of aerial adventure set against the roiling backdrop of war in Asia. The incredible real-life saga of the flying band of brothers who opened the skies over China in the years leading up to World War II—and boldly safeguarded them during that conflict—China’s Wings is one of the most exhilarating untold chapters in the annals of flight. At the center of the maelstrom is the book’s courtly, laconic protagonist, American aviation executive William Langhorne Bond. In search of adventure, he arrives in Nationalist China in 1931, charged with turning around the turbulent nation’s flagging airline business, the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC). The mission will take him to the wild and lawless frontiers of commercial aviation: into cockpits with daredevil pilots flying—sometimes literally—on a wing and a prayer; into the dangerous maze of Chinese politics, where scheming warlords and volatile military officers jockey for advantage; and into the boardrooms, backrooms, and corridors of power inhabited by such outsized figures as Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek; President Franklin Delano Roosevelt; foreign minister T. V. Soong; Generals Arnold, Stilwell, and Marshall; and legendary Pan American Airways founder Juan Trippe. With the outbreak of full-scale war in 1941, Bond and CNAC are transformed from uneasy spectators to active participants in the struggle against Axis imperialism. Drawing on meticulous research, primary sources, and extensive personal interviews with participants, Gregory Crouch offers harrowing accounts of brutal bombing runs and heroic evacuations, as the fight to keep one airline flying becomes part of the larger struggle for China’s survival. He plunges us into a world of perilous night flights, emergency water landings, and the constant threat of predatory Japanese warplanes. When Japanese forces capture Burma and blockade China’s only overland supply route, Bond and his pilots must battle shortages of airplanes, personnel, and spare parts to airlift supplies over an untried five-hundred-mile-long aerial gauntlet high above the Himalayas—the infamous “Hump”—pioneering one of the most celebrated endeavors in aviation history. A hero’s-eye view of history in the grand tradition of Lynne Olson’s Citizens of London, China’s Wings takes readers on a mesmerizing journey to a time and place that reshaped the modern world.

"This is the story of an aviation pioneer who developed a major airline in China in the 1930s and 1940s. W. Langhorne Bond was a Pan American executive in the days when Pam Am was achieving mastery of the skies. The book tells the story of Bond's efforts to set up and operate a fledgling airline, the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC), while overcoming Chinese political machinations, attacks by invading Japanese forces, and changing and erratic American management and government policies."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

For those who have always wanted to prepare Chinese food at home, here is the book they can actually learn Chinese cooking from—full-color, step-by-step photographs fully convey the process and presentation of Chinese cuisine. With 350 photos and 100 main recipes plus 250 variations suited for the contemporary kitchen, Knack Chinese Cooking offers a veritable banquet of authentic recipes from the Eight Great Cuisines of China, as well as dishes from China’s emerging cosmopolitan capitals and from the best Chinatown kitchens. Readers gain a basic knowledge of the equipment, ingredients, and techniques needed to prepare an essential repertoire of Chinese dishes.

The Korean conflict was a pivotal event in China's modern military history. The fighting in Korea constituted an important experience for the newly formed People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), not only as a test case for this fledgling service but also in the later development of Chinese air power. Xiaoming Zhang fills the gaps in the history of this conflict by basing his research in recently declassified Chinese and Russian archival materials. He also relies on interviews with Chinese participants in the air war over Korea. Zhang's findings challenge conventional wisdom as he compares kill ratios and performance by all sides involved in the war. Zhang also addresses the broader issues of the Korean War, such as how air power affected Beijing's decision to intervene. He touches on ground operations and truce negotiations during the conflict. Chinese leaders placed great emphasis on the supremacy of human will over modern weaponry, but they were far from oblivious to the advantages of the latter and to China's technological limitations. Developments in China's own air power were critical during this era. Zhang offers considerable materials on the training of Chinese aviators and the Soviet role in that training, on Soviet and Chinese air operations in Korea, and on diplomatic exchanges over Soviet military assistance to China. He probes the impact of the war on China's conception of the role of air power, arguing that it was not until the Gulf War of the early 1990s that Chinese leaders engaged in a broad reassessment of the strategy they adopted during the Korean War. Military historians and scholars interested in aviation and foreign affairs will find this volume of special interest. As a unique work that presents the Chinese point of view, it stands as both a complement and a corrective to previous accounts of the conflict. Xiaoming Zhang earned his Ph.D. in history at the University of Iowa in 1994. He has had works published in various journals, including the Journal of Military History, which has twice selected him to receive the Moncado Prize for excellence in the writing of military history. Zhang currently resides in Montgomery, Alabama, where he teaches at the Air War College. Zhang's study is masterful in placing the Chinese air war in Korea in the context of China's development in the twentieth century. In addition to providing important new evidence on China's role in the Korean War, Zhang offers a particularly noteworthy analysis of Sino-Soviet relations during the early 1950s. William Stueck, Distinguished Research Professor of History, University of Georgia; author of The Korean War: An International History (1995) and Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History (2002)

From the Preface: This book was required. As a former professor of military history at the American Military University (AMU) and a retired USAF Colonel, I wanted to teach a course on the effects of fighter aviation in war. In addition, I wanted to create a course that was a "hands-on" approach to fighter aviation history. Having flown USAF fighters for more than 20 years, I felt I had a good working knowledge of fighter aviation, but when I researched the subject I found I would have to ask my students to read scores of books to provide the background they would need. There was no "single-source" book that covered everything I wanted to cover. I determined to write that book. I wanted to write a straightforward book in plain language that would not bore fighter pilots and at the same time that would be simple enough to be attractive to laymen as well as air power historians. That is what I have done, I have covered some detailed thoughts about fighter flying in what Southern Americans might call "biscuits and gravy" language. The overriding premise of the text, is that the fighter has been the key element in the air power equation and continues in that role today although this role may be changing with the advent of good, reliable, beyond visual range air-to-air missies. This view has not been universally held over the years; however, it is a view that has been held by fighter pilots since the advent of the fighter. More and more historians are beginning to support this view. Table of Contents: World War I; Fighter Development Between Wars; The Air Wars Between World Wars; Fighter Development In World War II; The Korean War; The Fighter In The Vietnam War; The Arab-Israeli Wars; The India-Pakistani Conflicts; The Air War In The Falklands; Soviet Experience In Afghanistan; The Persian Gulf War; The Future; Summary And Conclusions.\; Appendices Definitions.