Reviews for The Pacific War Remembered: An Oral History Collection

The average rating for The Pacific War Remembered: An Oral History Collection based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-11-04 00:00:00 Jeff Dearmond I am now at page 208. I am probably not going to finish it. Although it is interesting and well-written (ghostwriter from Wall Street Journal is very good), it is frustrating. During WW II, Sidney Rittenberg, an American Communist and labor organizer in his 20s, learns Chinese, joins the Army, and ends up in China in 1945, just as the civil war between the Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government and Mao Zedong's Communists is heating up. What Rittenberg sees of the former is feudal callousness, brutality, and corruption. What he sees of the the latter is how peasants are treated equally with Communists leaders and people are industrious and content. After proving himself in numerous ways, he is accepted eventually into the Chinese Communist party, most unusual for a foreigner. He works closely with the leaders as an interpreter and propagandist. In 1949, at the behest of the Russian Communists, who don't want Communists from any other country gaining sway in China, he is arrested. In prison for six years, he is tortured mentally and spends most of his time trying to be a more faithful member of the Party by correcting his individualist thinking. When he gets out, after Stalin's death in Russia, he is suddenly not only rehabilitated but moved to a high level of trust in the radio administration. There he cheerfully reports colleagues who might harbor counterrevolutionary thoughts and thinks it is all for their own good and the greater good of the Party (which is China, in his view). He is either incredibly naive or determined to delude himself. Having admired the 1945 Communists for the egalitarian living conditions, he has nothing to say about now living like other leaders in Beijing--in other words, like a prince. It's a frustrating read. It is hard to find anything uplifting in it. Compare this to, say, Greg Mortenson working with the more open-minded mullahs in Pakistan and submitting to sharia law as they work to counter fatwahs from the radical clerics. He is building schools for girls. He is not brainwashing himself. But Rittenberg writes propaganda, and in spite going to jail for another 10 years in China--eventually becoming disillusioned and bringing his family to live in the U.S. after 35 years straight in China--says he has no regrets. I think I will clean the palate with a murder mystery and then decide if I am going back to this book.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-01-29 00:00:00 Andrew Negapatan This autobiography is not your usual expat in China story. Sidney Rittenberg stayed on in China after his assignment with the US army at the end of WW2 was done, first joining a U.N. mission and then joining the Communists in Yan'an, becoming the first American to ever become a Chinese Communist Party member. Rittenberg climbs to an influential position at China International Radio responsible for translating and delivering Mao Zedong Thought and propagating China's view on communism to the world. Rittenberg witnessed first-hand much of what occurred at upper levels of the CCP and knew many of its leaders personally and had access to many classified documents. He was a fervent believer in the communist cause and his writing illuminates his reasoning very well. Later, he was twice imprisoned in solitary confinement accused of being a spy, for a total of 16 years, when he heard the voice of Jiang Qing in the prison hallway he knew his days in prison were numbered. Rittenberg had a unique opportunity and reading his book I felt having the same privileged access. Rittenberg, together with a co-writer, manages to write without hindsight what went through his mind at the time. Highly recommended reading!