Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The China Mirage (The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia)
Author: James Bradley
Narration by: Pete Larkin
James Bradley (Author, American non fiction writer with a degree in East Asian History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.)
“The China Mirage” is a highly criticized history of Chinese, Japanese, and American history. An independent online service called StoryGraph analytically reviews books for casual readers like me. Criticism of “The China Mirage” suggests it is a highly inaccurate history that misrepresents the causes of the American Revolution, claims the U.S. would not have fought in WWII without Chinese involvement, implies nothing significant came from opening China to foreign trade, ignores Japanese war crimes like Nanjing, makes incorrect statements about WWII miliary chronology, and notes incorrect casualty comparisons between Tokyo’s firebombing and Hiroshima/Nagasaki’s nuclear bombing.
Additionally, a “New English Review” article by Armando Simon suggests Bradley’s portrayal of missionaries, lobbyists, and bureaucrats is overly conspiratorial and moralizing. Amando Simon is a Cuban-American writer, psychologist, and contributor to the “New English Review”.
Criticism about historical inaccuracies, factual errors, oversimplification of complex events, ideological bias, and conspiratorial framing of U.S. foreign policy cause this book to be returned to the library before completion.
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